First Bitcoin Futures ETF Generates $1 Billion in Trade Volume on First Day

Around $1 billion in volume was traded in BITO as more than 24 million shares changed hands on its first day. The ProShares debut ranked only behind a BlackRock carbon fund for the first day of trading.

According to Bloomberg data, BITO climbed about 4.9% to $41.94 on the day. Options on BITO will begin trading on the NYSE Arca Options and NYSE American Options exchanges on Oct. 20, the report added.

The highly anticipated Bitcoin futures fund was finally approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late last week and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 19 with an opening price of $40.88.

Big Day For Bitcoin Fund

Stephane Ouellette, chief executive and co-founder of crypto-focused capital-markets platform FRNT Financial Inc., said that it had been a highly successful launch, adding:

“Given the amount of avenues retail investors already have to participate in BTC, clearly the U.S.-based ETFs are nonetheless satisfying some kind of latent, even if niche, demand.”

Speaking on Bloomberg TV, a global investment strategist at ProShares, Simeon Hyman, stated that the newly launched investment product was a convenient way to invest in BTC via regular brokerage accounts. He added that it was “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.”

BITO was one of the most-bought assets on Fidelity’s platform, with more than 8,800 buy orders coming from customers before the close of trading yesterday.

Crypto billionaire and FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said it was “an incredibly bullish week.” Gold bug Peter Schiff couldn’t resist putting his usual downer on things stating:

“My beef is that Bitcoin pumpers will now use the approval to sucker in more buyers based on the government’s supposed endorsement of Bitcoin by approving the ETF.”

No Volatility … Yet

Analysts expected major volatility to follow, but Bitcoin prices have actually inched closer to their all-time high during the Wednesday morning Asian trading session. At the time of writing, BTC was trading at about $63,500, according to CoinGecko, just 1.3% off that peak price.

Analysts are expecting the Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF to begin trading under the ticker BTFD this week, which could add to the frothy momentum.