On Thursday, March 14, the U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETF witnessed a marked reduction in inflows, plummeting 80.6% to $133 million, per data from analytics frim Spot On Chain. This drop represents the lowest inflow numbers over the last eight trading sessions, raising questions about the diminishing interest from investors traditionally associated with Wall Street. The total net inflow after 44 trading days now stands at $11.96 billion, indicating a persistent but reduced investment activity in the Bitcoin ETF sector.
Interestingly, on the same day, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) saw a record trading volume of over $3.9 billion, surpassing its previous high of $3.7 billion, achieved less than ten days prior on March 5. This activity occurred as the Bitcoin price fell by 6%, later showing signs of recovery. IBIT emerged as the highest performer in terms of volume and net inflows among ten new ETFs launched in January. Notably, on March 12, IBIT recorded a historic net inflow of $849 million, the largest for any Bitcoin fund to date.
Maintaining its status as the ETF with the most assets, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) saw a trading volume of $1.96 billion, securing second place behind IBIT. Despite these figures, Grayscale’s market share has not surpassed 50%, facing outflows close to $11.7 billion since its transformation into an ETF format.
However, GBTC recorded a net outflow of $257.1 million, which represents an improvement over the $276.5 million outflow noted on March 13. In the broader ETF landscape, the VanEck Bitcoin Trust ETF (HODL) and Fidelity’s FBTC also made notable contributions, with inflows of $13.8 million and $13.7 million, respectively.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas commented on the trend, noting that halfway through the month, the combined trading volumes of the ten ETFs have already surpassed previous months. So far, these ETFs have achieved $65 billion in volume for March, significantly above February’s approximately $42 billion. Moreover, these ETFs marked a record with over $1 billion in daily net inflows on March 12.
The developments came amidst the backdrop of the Bitcoin price seeing a 7.72% drop to $67,483.45, with a notable surge in trading volume by 54.20% to $74.48 million. The price fluctuated between a high of $73,750.07 and a low of $66,855.76 in the last 24 hours, reflecting the ongoing volatility in the market. This period of fluctuation comes as the industry anticipates the upcoming FOMC meeting, which may provide insights into the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions.
