Bitcoin futures ETF hits $1B AUM in a record-breaking two days

Published at: Oct. 21, 2021

Since the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF started trading this week, it has become the fastest fund ever to reach $1 billion in assets under management (AUM).

The highly anticipated launch of the first Bitcoin (BTC) futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States, BITO, has resulted in a number of milestone achievements.

Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas reported that the fund was the quickest ever to reach a 10-figure AUM after just two days of trading. BITO easily surpassed the previous record-holder, a gold-based fund with the ticker GLD, which took three days to hit the billion-dollar mark in 2004.

He commented that this was “poetically apropos,” presumably in reference to Bitcoin’s store of value properties and comparison to digital gold.

RECORD BREAKER: $BITO assets up to $1.1b after today, making it the fastest ETF to get to $1b (2 days) breaking $GLD’s 18yr old record (3 days), which is poetically apropos. https://t.co/yGXyfwaogD

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 20, 2021

Balchunas exclaimed, “I’ve never seen anything like this. I bet ProShares is even shocked,” while retweeting a post by Bloomberg Intelligence research analyst James Seyffart, who updated the original chart.

Balchunas commented that there may not be any contracts left to buy if this volume continues, referring to a post by The ETF Store President Nate Geraci stating that nearly 45% of BITO exposure is now in November futures contracts.

“If $BITO keeps up this pace of inflows it won’t have any futures left to buy by the end of the month due to pos [position] limits.”

The ProShares fund also broke the record for the highest-ever first day of organic volume, which hit $1 billion on Tuesday when it launched. More than 24 million shares were traded during its debut day, and since the ETF went live, it has now traded more than $2 billion in volume.

Balchunas has predicted that the next Bitcoin futures fund launch will be on Friday. This is likely to be the Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF, which is changing its ticker back to BTF in preparation. In crypto circles, the former ticker BTFD also referred to as “buy the f---ing dip,” which may not have gone down too well with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

I had said this was launching tmrw it’s actually going to be on Friday. sorry about that. https://t.co/fqaGwjgscO

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 20, 2021

The momentum has driven Bitcoin prices to a new all-time high of $67,276 on Wednesday, according to CoinGecko. At the time of writing, the asset had retreated slightly to change hands around the $65,230 mark.