Bitcoin price rises as spot ETF's start first day of trading

Companies • January 11, 2024, 9:39AM EST

Published 1 minute earlier on

Quick Take

Spot bitcoin ETFs are live in a first day of trading in the U.S.

Bitcoin BTC +6.40% 's price rose Thursday, as the first spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. started trading after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved them yesterday. The price of the world's largest crypto currency by market capitalization rose 5.5% to $47,791 at 9:30 a.m.

Yahoo Finance showed both BlackRock's IBIT and Grayscale's GBTC as trending tickers.

"While focus as been on bitcoin, a big takeaway is that ETFs continue to show they can handle just about anything," Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas said on X, posting a chart that showed the trading profile of the spot bitcoin ETFs in Europe, "where spreads and prem/disc have tightened. Expecting same in U.S. over time."

"What happened to selling the news?" he said in a follow up post.

Volumes to come

All eyes will be on volumes, with Valkyrie co-founder and CIO Steven McClurg saying he expects $200 million to $400 million of investors’ funds coming to Valkyrie’s ETF, and all participants might see $4 billion to $5 billion of inflows over the first couple of weeks.

VanEck estimated that $1 billion of funds would flow into these products over the first few days, and $2.4 billion within a quarter. Galaxy anticipates inflows of $14 billion within the first year. Bitwise said it reckons the market for spot bitcoin ETFs will reach roughly $72 billion within five years.

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About Author

Nathan Crooks is the U.S managing editor at The Block, based in Miami. He was previously at Bloomberg News for 12 years, where he helmed coverage of South Florida after roles as a breaking news editor and bureau chief in Caracas, Venezuela. He's interviewed presidents, government ministers and CEOs, and, besides crypto, has covered major news events on the ground from earthquakes to hurricanes to the Chilean mine rescue in 2018. Nathan, a native of Clarion, Pennsylvania, holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto, where he completed a specialist in political science, and an MBA from American University in Washington, D.C.