Spot Bitcoin ETFs are back in favor among institutional investors this week, with Monday, July 22, registering the largest daily inflow since June 4.
A whopping $533.6 million entered four of the eleven listed spot BTC ETFs in the United States, according to preliminary data from Farside Investors. There have now been 12 consecutive days of inflows.
However, retail trading on spot markets is going in the other direction at the moment.
Bitcoin ETF Flow (US$ million) – 2024-07-22
TOTAL NET FLOW: 533.6
(Provisional data)
IBIT: 526.7
FBTC: 23.7
BITB:
ARKB: 0
BTCO: 13.7
EZBC: 7.9
BRRR: 0
HODL: -38.4
BTCW: 0
GBTC: 0
DEFI: 0
For all the data & disclaimers visit:https://t.co/4ISlrCgZdk
— Farside Investors (@FarsideUK) July 23, 2024
BlackRock Leading The Way
The BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) had 98.7% of that total with $526.7 million, equating to 7,759 BTC. Moreover, it was the largest inflow day for BlackRock since March.
IBIT currently holds 327,179 BTC worth around $22 billion, according to the official website. This makes it the world’s leading BTC fund, with $3.5 billion more than Grayscale’s GBTC which holds 272,061 BTC.
Founder of Tolou Capital Management, Spencer Hakimian, observed that IBIT has surpassed the Invesco QQQ ETF which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq-100. It could also pass Vanguard’s Total Stock Market ETF very soon, he said before adding “Demand for Bitcoin via ETF has been relentless. Unprecedented really.”
IBIT has passed QQQ into YTD net flows. And could pass Vanguard’s Total Stock Market ETF very soon too. Compare the net sizes of these ETF’s vs. net inflows. Demand for Bitcoin via ETF has been relentless. Unprecedented really. pic.twitter.com/CyD3p7c9CX
— Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian) July 22, 2024
There was a small inflow for Fidelity’s FBTC and an outflow from the VanEck Bitcoin Trust (HODL), but BlackRock dominated the day. The big move builds on last week’s ETF momentum, which saw inflows of more than $1.2 billion over the five trading days.
It also comes a day before spot Ethereum ETFs are set to begin trading. Analyst Willy Woo said this may be bearish for Bitcoin in the short term.
“Some of the capital in BTC ETFs may rotate into the ETH ETFs, hard to estimate how much, but this is a risk.”
In the two months that followed the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in mid-January, BTC surged 62% to hit an all-time high by mid-March.
If the same thing happens for Ethereum following today’s launches, ETH could top out at $5,300 by late September.
Spot Markets Retreat
Crypto market capitalization has declined by 2% over the past 24 hours to $2.53 trillion. Bitcoin lost 1.4% in a fall to $66,600, where it found support at the time of writing. There is more support at the $65,000 level should markets decline further.
Ethereum was also losing ground on ETF launch day dropping 1.3% on the day to $3,450. Analysts have predicted that ETH could pull back further following the ETF launches.
Altcoins were largely in the red, with bigger drops for Dogecoin (DOGE), Toncoin (TON), Avalanche (AVAX), Tron (TRX), Chainlink (LINK), and Polkadot (DOT).