Bitcoin ETF fever returns: ProShares’ BITO sees ‘biggest’ inflow in over a year

Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) enthusiasm is back, with new applications and increased capital inflows from institutional investors.

On June 26, an increase in flows into the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) – a bitcoin futures fund – was observed by Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg.

The fund had the largest weekly inflows in a year at $65.3 million and had assets of over $1 billion.

BITO was the first BTC-linked ETF in the United States and remains one of the most popular among institutional investors.

Balchunas claimed that BITO “tracks bitcoin closely”, with spot prices down 1.05% annually and a fee of 0.95%.

bitcoin futures etf $bito It had its biggest weekly inflows in over a year as assets again topped $1 billion. It also traded half a billion shares on Friday, which happened only 5 times before. @SirYappityyapp pic.twitter.com/Xrq0lUaaTO

— Eric Balchanas (@EricBalchanas) 25 June 2023

Accordingly BITO Fund has gained 59.6% since the beginning of 2023 ProShare, Interest in bitcoin derivatives has increased across the board since BlackRock filed for its own bitcoin ETF on June 15.

According to the Deribit crypto options exchange, bitcoin futures open interest (OI) has increased over the past week. It is currently at $319 million as of June 25, up almost 30% from the same period last week.

OI is a measure of the total number of outstanding futures contracts that have not been settled.

The resurgence in ETF trading and the resulting BTC price rise is also good news for Grayscale, the world’s largest crypto asset manager. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which has been trading at a huge discount to spot BTC prices for months, is moving in the right direction as the gap narrows.

According to coinglass, the grayscale premium, also known as its discount, is -31.2%. It fell to -49% in December.

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It’s unclear whether the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve a spot bitcoin ETF, but the race is now on as a new wave of filings comes after BlackRock.

WisdomTree filed with the SEC to create a spot bitcoin ETF for the third time, just hours after Invesco renewed its application for a similar product.

On June 25, Nate Geraci, president of ETF Store Tweeted His list of ETF issuers that he will “keep an eye on” as he believes they will file or re-file for a spot bitcoin ETF is based on previous filings. Geraci named First Trust, VanEck, Global X, Fidelity and what he called the “dark horse” Schwab.

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