Outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) slowed on Wednesday while inflows into the other nine U.S.-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds turned positive, offsetting the net outflows seen earlier this week.
This Wednesday, more than $113 million entered the popular new funds, eclipsing the $87.5 in net outflows recorded on Monday, data from Coinglass shows.
GBTC Outflows Slow Down
On Monday, nearly $303 million left GBTC, putting downward pressure on the price of Bitcoin. The fund was one of 11 Bitcoin ETFs given the regulatory blessing by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to start trading in mid-January.
Of all the Bitcoin ETFs, GBTC has been the only one investors have withdrawn cash out from at rocket speed. This is due to bankrupt crypto firms redeeming GBTC shares they had to reimburse creditors. Genesis, for instance, secured bankruptcy court approval on February 14 to sell around 35 million GBTC shares (worth roughly $1.8 billion). Moreover, the GBTC ETF is also more expensive than other ETFs on the market: its sponsor fee stands at 1.5%.
Continued outflows from GBTC have put significant selling pressure on the price of BTC in recent weeks. However, market pundits have forecasted that outflows from GBTC will slow down and dry up over time, resulting in phenomenal demand for ETFs.
Renewed Interest In Bitcoin
Despite bleeding an eye-popping 291,000 BTC since its transformation to an ETF, GBTC still leads the pack in terms of total Bitcoin held, with approximately 329,000 Bitcoin on its books at press time.
The most popular ETF remains BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which has the most assets under management of the nine new funds. BlackRock’s vehicle has been so successful that the company’s CEO Larry Fink revealed in a recent interview that he “would never have predicted” it would do so well with retail investors.
However, Fidelity’s FBTC fund led Wednesday’s inflows, attracting $116.7 million, with BlackRock’s IBIT coming in second with $42 million in inflows.
Bitcoin dropped to as low as $65,135 over the past 24 hours but remains 58% up year-to-date. Observers have called it a routine pullback before the Bitcoin block subsidy halving event, which is expected later this month. BTC’s price currently stands at $68,789 per coin, a 2.5% gain on the day, according to CoinGecko.
