Trading has been underway for 90 minutes in the Great ETF Race of 2024 and it’s already clear who the winner will be.
The IBIT ETF from Blackrock has seen 21.65 million shares traded, far more than Fidelities FBTC at 9.01 million, though the dollar-value gap is considerably closer if you adjust for the relative prices of the ETFs.
As for the remainder, it’s not even close with ARK at 3.00m and no one else even in the running.
The irony of the decentralized, anti-establishment ethos of bitcoin running into Blackrock’s arms shouldn’t be lost:
The other one to watch is GBTC, which converted today from its closed-end structure to a proper ETF. Volumes are at 24 million shares, which is higher than any full day since July 2022. However this product is more of an arb trade as it was trading at a 7% discount to NAV yesterday. Given that it’s up 0.8% compared to the 1.0% rise in bitcoin, it doesn’t look like that arb is working and the discount to NAV will remain for now.
