The VanEck Bitcoin (
$60,593.00 ) Strategy ETF (XBTF) closed its first day of trading on Nov. 16 with “respectable” trading volume, but one that pales in comparison to similar launches.
Bitcoin ( $60,593.00 ) futures ETFs provide investors exposure to potential future prices of Bitcoin ( $60,593.00 ) without forcing them to hold any Bitcoin ( $60,593.00 ) themselves.
At market close on the Chicago Board of Exchange (CBOE), XBTF had accumulated around $9.5 million in assets under management (AUM), and saw around $4.6 million in daily trading volume according to investing.com. This is just a fraction of the first-day trading volume of $1 billion the ProShares Bitcoin ( $60,593.00 ) Strategy (BITO) enjoyed on Oct. 19 on NYSE. BITO has since reached the top 2% of all ETFs by total trading volume.
Tommy Horan, Head of Corporate Partnerships at Australian exchange Swyftx said that it had been a “pretty subdued launch but VanEck won’t be too worried. Their [lower] fees should attract a steady rate of inflows over the next quarter.
“This was always going to be a bit of a non-event after all the hype around ProShares’ $1.1bn launch and continues the trend we saw with Valkyrie’s ETF.”
Valkyrie’s Bitcoin ( $60,593.00 ) futures ETF also had a relatively lackluster launch with BTF dropping 3% in price in the first hour of trading on Oct. 22 on Nasdaq, despite its $78 million in trading volume.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg suggested in a Nov. 17 tweet that XBTF’s trading volume would normally be pretty good, but that it has been vastly overshadowed by BITO.
$XBTF traded about $5m on Day One. Normally that would be pretty good, prob Top 10% of launches this year. It’s just shadowed by the absurd $1b $BITO laid down, not to mention $78m that $BTF did. pic.twitter.com/bjqrUnThzr
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) November 16, 2021
The lower trading volume on XBTF comes in the wake of the SEC rejecting VanEck’s application for a spot Bitcoin ( $60,593.00 ) ETF. As opposed to the futures ETF, a spot ETF would allow investors to gain exposure to the current price of Bitcoin ( $60,593.00 ) without needing to hold BTC themselves.
Overall, Horan lauded the XBTF launch but says crypto ETFs won’t hit their stride until a spot ETF is approved: “It’s great for the industry to see crypto funds getting regulatory approval, but until a spot ETF is accepted, no-one is going to be getting over their ski tips.”
Related: SEC reportedly knocks back Valkyrie’s leveraged Bitcoin ( $60,593.00 ) ETF
$2,406.85 ) 
