Historical Breakthrough: Approval of Bitcoin Spot ETFs Ushers in a New Era for Cryptocurrency Industry
In a landmark moment for both Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market, the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs represents a significant milestone. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs for listing at 4 a.m. on January 11th, turning a new page for Bitcoin.
The approved ETFs include the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, Hashdex Bitcoin ETF, iShares Bitcoin Trust, Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund, ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, VanEck Bitcoin Trust, WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund, Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, and the Franklin Bitcoin ETF. Six of these will be listed on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), three on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the remaining two on NASDAQ.
Among them, Grayscale (GBTC) stands out with an asset management scale of $46 billion, and Blackrock’s iShares leads the industry with a massive $9.42 trillion. ARK 21Shares (ARKB) follows, managing around $6.7 billion in assets. Bitwise (BITB), though smaller in scale, still boasts about $1 billion in assets under management.
Other significant players include VanEck, managing approximately $76.4 billion in assets, WisdomTree (BTCW) with about $97.5 billion, Invesco Galaxy (BTCO) with $1.5 trillion, and Fidelity (Wise Origin) with $4.5 trillion.
The ETF applications from BlackRock and ARK Invest had garnered widespread market attention. In 2023, BlackRock’s application for a Bitcoin spot ETF was seen as a pivotal market moment, given its asset management scale exceeding $10 trillion. Of the ETF applications submitted to the SEC by BlackRock, 575 were approved with only one rejection. On January 3, 2024, BlackRock invested $10 million in startup funds for its Bitcoin spot ETF, named iShares Bitcoin Trust, trading under the ticker IBIT.
ARK Invest’s Bitcoin spot ETF also made the approved list. According to ARK’s fund holdings data, the fund had sold off all its positions in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) by the end of 2023, partly reallocating to ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO).
Looking ahead at Bitcoin’s price performance, historical data suggests that the introduction of gold ETFs had a long-term positive impact on gold prices. The market broadly anticipates a similar effect on Bitcoin prices following the launch of Bitcoin ETFs. A report by Galaxy Digital points out that with a similar influx of capital, Bitcoin’s market impact could be 8.8 times that of gold. Valkyrie Investments predicts that trading volumes for its ETF could reach $5 billion in the initial weeks.
