GBTC net outflows reach $10 billion within two months of ETF conversion
Investor assets from Grayscale Investments’ spot Bitcoin ETF surpassed $10 billion on Thursday, and demand for several competing products remains strong.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) lost $375 million on Thursday, according to BitMEX Research. data — Total net outflows since conversion to ETFs on January 11 exceeded $10.2 billion.
GBTC was an outlier within the 10-fund U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF sector, offering a 1.5% fee, much higher than its competitors.
Read more: Why Planned Fees for Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF Are So Much Higher Than Other ETFs
For example, BlackRock’s fast-growing IShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) each charge a fee of 0.25%.
IBIT recorded net inflows of $9.7 billion after nearly two months of trading, while inflows into FBTC hit $6 billion on Thursday.
Net inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have amounted to about $9.4 billion to date, even though that category is under pressure due to outflows from GBTC.
GBTC has seen net outflows every trading day since January 11, but on February 26 these negative flows hit a low of $22 million.
Sumit Roy, senior analyst at ETF.com, told Blockworks at the time that the initial selling by arbitrageurs and those looking to move into cheaper funds is “largely over.”
However, GBTC outflows increased again, reaching nearly $600 million on February 29. The fund’s average daily net outflows through the first four days of this week amounted to $338 million, according to BitMEX Research data.
Read more: Bitcoin ETF net inflows remain positive despite GBTC’s $600 million outflow.
Some industry observers at post Last week, there was speculation that the increase in outflows could be driven in part by Genesis, the insolvent lender that was approved to sell about $1.6 billion worth of GBTC stock earlier this month. A Genesis spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite net outflows of over $10 billion over the past two months, GBTC’s assets under management have declined slightly over the period, from around $28 billion to $27 billion, given BTC’s price surge in recent weeks.
BTC hit an all-time high of just over $69,000 on Tuesday before falling back to $60,000 later in the day.
The asset’s price was around $67,400 as of 6 a.m. ET on Friday, up more than 8% from a week ago.
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