Bitcoin spot ETF trading volume surpasses $1.6B within minutes of launch

Pinpointing exact volume is difficult at the time of launch, as trade volume is currently a moving target.

Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were off to a remarkable start as trading officially began on Jan. 11 with a total volume of around $1.6 billion just minutes after the opening bell.

The movement comes on the heels of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of the first Bitcoin spot ETFs.

Related: Bitcoin ETFs begin trading on Cboe, NYSE Arca and Nasdaq

Leading the pack of 10 currently registered ETFs are Grayscale (GBTC), Blackrock (IBIT), Fidelity (FBTC) and Ark (ARKB), whose capitalizations at the time of this article’s publication were around $667.55 million, $475.6 million, $291.1 million, and $117.8 million, respectively.

It’s important to note that trading volume continues to fluctuate, with some snapshots showing more than $2 billion in volume as orders are processed and total volume fluctuates from peak to trough.

Almost a good hour after this tweet and the number still isn't 2.3 billy.. it did however hit $1b and $1.8b if you incl $GBTC, which are UNREAL first day numbers (records will be smashed today). My source is a consolidation of all the exchange feeds via Bloomberg terminal. FYI! https://t.co/emqwEY0Hke

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 11, 2024

The long-awaited launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs has been marred by false starts, SEC X account hacks and no small amount of perceived fear, uncertainty and doubt.

On Tuesday, Jan. 9, as Cointelegraph reported, the SEC’s official X (Twitter) account was allegedly “hacked” by a person(s) who then posted a false indication that the commission had approved BTC spot ETFs.

The news was quickly quashed when SEC Chair Gary Gensler and the recovered SEC account both informed the public that the latter had been “hacked” and no such approval had been issued.

The kerfuffle turned out to be moot despite some knock-on negative market movement on Tuesday, as full approval came on Wednesday, Jan. 10, ahead of the Jan. 11 launch.

Wow

3M #Bitcoin versus Money Supply on the cusp of major bullish crossover and momentum change after 6-year downtrend pic.twitter.com/nRP4PqWJnC

— Tony "The Bull" (@tonythebullBTC) January 11, 2024

The current sentiment on social media within the cryptocurrency community appears to be nearly unanimously bullish, with most pundits and commentators hailing the arrival of Bitcoin spot ETFs as monumental.

Next up, the community looks toward the possibility of an ETH spot ETF. As Cointelegraph recently reported, BlackRock filed for a spot Ether ETF in November 2023.

The SEC deadline for a decision is May 23, 2024, and many crypto proponents believe the launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs points to a positive outcome for an Ether (ETH) ETF.

Update (Jan. 12 at 1:12 am UTC): The article has been updated to reflect that only 10 spot Bitcoin ETFs are currently registered as Hashdex is yet to receive S-1 approval.