Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) surpassed a number of predictions about their belongings as their collective belongings underneath administration (AUM) hit $59.1 billion throughout the first three months of the yr, Bitwise revealed in a analysis report on April 11.
JP Morgan and Bitcoin funding administration agency NYDIG anticipated that spot Bitcoin ETFs might obtain an AUM of $36 billion and $30 billion by the yr’s finish. In the meantime, Matrixport predicted the ETF would garner an AUM between $24 billion and $50 billion by Dec. 31, 2024.
The precise AUM is almost twice as excessive as every firm’s earlier prediction, and spot Bitcoin ETFs are on the way in which to satisfy the extra optimistic predictions made by CryptoQuant, Normal Chartered, and Bloomberg Intelligence.
Bloomberg and Normal Chartered challenge an end-of-year AUM of roughly $100 billion for the ETFs, whereas CryptoQuant believes they’ll attain $150 billion.
The information consists of Grayscale’s GBTC, which accounts for $22.26 billion of the collective AUM and has largely seen outflows since its launch.
Different key ETF knowledge
Bitwise’s report additionally revealed that spot Bitcoin ETF demand far exceeded new BTC manufacturing throughout the first quarter of 2024. Miners produced 74,756 BTC throughout the first quarter, whereas the ETFs collectively took in 212,852 BTC — 2.8x larger than the quantity produced.
The report mentioned that the discount in mining output brought on by Bitcoin’s upcoming halving — anticipated roughly round April 20 — might have an effect on the supply-demand ratio.
Bitcoin ETFs additionally demonstrated sturdy efficiency in opposition to the 2 largest US gold ETFs. Through the first quarter, spot Bitcoin ETFs noticed $12 billion in inflows in opposition to $3 billion in gold ETF outflows.
Regardless of their broader success, Bitcoin ETFs signify solely a minority of Bitcoin possession. Bitcoin ETFs maintain 800,000 BTC, amounting to three.9% of all Bitcoin possession. People (57%), inactive accounts (17.6%), and a number of other different small classes maintain the rest of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin findings
The Bitwise report additionally famous that Bitcoin had demonstrated excessive efficiency year-to-date, with its worth rising 66.99% year-to-date — outperforming progress in nearly each market, together with the US equities (10.56%), gold (8.09%), DM equities (5.81%), and different markets.
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan additionally famous “low correlations between Bitcoin and the S&P 500,” represented within the report by a 0.11 correlation between Bitcoin and the US equities market.
The correlation is vital, because the diploma to which Bitcoin correlates with conventional markets determines whether or not Bitcoin is a risk-on asset or a hedge in opposition to typical markets.
Hougan mentioned Bitwise’s report ought to provoke a “staggeringly bullish” perspective towards the crypto market. He famous crypto has been within the bull market part for the previous 1.25 years and that bull markets sometimes final three years, which means sturdy efficiency might persist.
