Happy first year anniversary to US Bitcoin ETFs. Here’s how far they’ve brought us

It’s been one year since US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) hit Wall Street. They cannonballed in and broke records that are impossible to ignore.

In twelve months, these babies have pulled in 1.13 million Bitcoins, worth $95 billion at today’s prices. Think about that for a second. Four of these ETFs—BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, ARK Invest’s ARKB, and Bitwise’s BITB—are now among the top 20 best-performing ETF launches in US history.

They even surpassed gold ETFs in assets under management (AUM). It took gold ETFs two decades to hit $128 billion. Bitcoin ETFs are sitting at $107 billion after one year.

Bitcoin ETFs crush gold’s legacy

BlackRock’s IBIT leads the pack, raking in $37.85 billion in assets. Fidelity wasn’t far behind, with its FBTC ETF pulling in $12.14 billion. Even ARK Invest and Bitwise crossed the billion-dollar mark, while other funds brought in $200 million to $800 million.

Within three months of launching, IBIT had $15 billion under management, and FBTC was at $8 billion. The combined inflows into all Bitcoin ETFs reached $36.3 billion, with total assets swelling to $107 billion, representing 1.13 million Bitcoin.

To put it another way, these ETFs gobbled up over 5% of Bitcoin’s total supply in just one year. And don’t forget, Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million coins. Every Bitcoin locked up in an ETF is one less circulating in the market, making the supply tighter—what analysts are calling “sticky.”

And it’s not just the sheer numbers that matter. These ETFs have redefined who owns Bitcoin. BlackRock, whose CEO Larry Fink once called Bitcoin “an index of money laundering,” is now one of the largest Bitcoin holders in the world, right up there with Satoshi Nakamoto’s original wallet, Binance, and MicroStrategy. If irony were an ETF, BlackRock would have the ticker symbol.

Bitcoin ETFs change market dynamics

Before the launch, investing in Bitcoin often felt like a tech-savvy scavenger hunt. Wallets, private keys, cold storage—it was all too much for your average investor. ETFs changed that overnight. Now, anyone with a brokerage account can buy Bitcoin exposure as easily as they’d buy Tesla or Apple shares.

You can rest assured that you won’t lose your money. BlackRock don’t play about their investment products, and they’ve never failed, to date. Everything they launch succeeds. Clearly, they know what they’re doing. They chose Bitcoin for a reason.

In any case, this accessibility drove a tidal wave of institutional and retail money into the market. Record-breaking inflows pushed Bitcoin’s price from $46,000 at the start of 2024 to highs of $108,000 by year-end. And the impact didn’t stop at Bitcoin.

The success of these ETFs spurred interest in other crypto-based financial products. By mid-2024, we saw the launch of spot Ether ETFs, and analysts are already predicting future ETFs for Solana and XRP.

Analysts expect $35 billion more to flow into Bitcoin ETFs by the second half of this year.

A long road to approval

The first proposal for a Bitcoin ETF hit the SEC’s desk in 2013, courtesy of the Winklevoss twins. It was rejected, of course. Between 2017 and 2021, the SEC kept shooting down proposal after proposal, citing concerns about market manipulation and investor protection.

But things started to change a little in 2021. The SEC approved the first Bitcoin futures ETF, ProShares’ BITO, which began trading in October of that year.

While it wasn’t the spot Bitcoin ETF everyone wanted, it was a step forward. By 2023, BlackRock and Fidelity entered the scene, filing for spot Bitcoin ETFs. Reportedly, 40% of all US institutional investors are expected to hold Bitcoin ETFs by the end of 2025, up from 22% in 2024.

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