- ProShares Bitcoin ETF received an overwhelming response with $1 billion in trading turnover on debut.
- Bitcoin (BTC) registered its highest-ever daily closing above $64,200 moving closer to its all-time high.
On Tuesday, October 19, the Proshares Bitcoin Strategy ETF debuted on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) amid massive fanfare. This Bitcoin ETF offers exposure to the world’s largest crypto through Bitcoin futures contracts instead of owning it outrightly.
The Proshares Bitcoin Strategy ETF is trading on NYSE under the ticker symbol of BITO. On debut, the BITO shares on NYSE skyrocketed by 5 percent giving a closing at $41.94 levels on Tuesday. As per data on Bloomberg, the ProShares Bitcoin ETF is the second most heavily traded fund in the history of the market.
With a turnover of USD 1 billion on debut, BITO’s debut ranks only behind the BlackRock US Carbon Transition Readiness ETF. A bitcoin ETF has been long-awaited by the crypto community as well as the Wall Street investors. Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Simeon Hyman, global investment strategist at ProShares, said:
We are really excited to bring BITO, the first Bitcoin-linked ETF, to investors as an important opportunity for them conveniently to invest in Bitcoin in their regular brokerage account. This is going to allow many people who have been waiting for an easy way to do this and a robust way to do this to now be involved and have it in their portfolios.
Some analysts have been ultra-bullish on BITO’s prospects. As per Bitcoin bull Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, this ProShares futures-based Bitcoin ETF can attract more than $50 billion in inflows during the first year.
Bitcoin price surpasses $64,000
The Bitcoin price reaction has been in tune with the launch of the first U.S. Bitcoin ETF. In the last 24-hours, the BTC price has rallied another 3 percent to surge past $64,000 levels. Interestingly, Bitcoin has registered the highest daily candle close in its history.
#bitcoin highest daily candle close in history!!! pic.twitter.com/8aRSBLT1uY
— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) October 20, 2021
So far in October, the BTC investors have been pushing the BTC price to the north. Bitcoin has already gained more than 45 percent since the beginning of Q4 2021 over the optimism driven by the Bitcoin ETF arrival. Morgan Creek CEO Mark Yusko, however, believes that we can possibly see a pullback in the short term. On the other hand, many analysts are expecting that the Bitcoin price could be touching $100K by the end of this year.
Read More: Morgan Creek: Bitcoin can see some profit-booking in short term, but $250,000 coming in five years
But the optimism surrounding Bitcoin ETF doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. Analysts are anticipating that on Wednesday, October 20, the Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF would debut with the ticker BTFD.
On the other hand, the world’s largest crypto asset manager Grayscale is working on converting its Bitcoin fund to a spot Bitcoin ETF. Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg said that the expected timeline for the same will be one year to 18 months. Speaking to Yahoo finance, Balchunas said:
Gary Gensler just isn’t really comfortable with the 1933 act. If you forced me to pick a date for that I would probably go with a year to eighteen months.
