Investors traded more than $1 billion worth of shares of the newly launched ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the first day they were available, according to data from Bloomberg. Trading volume simply represents the dollar amount of shares exchanged and doesn’t provide any insights into whether these trades signal inflows or outflows. It is also unclear whether investments were made with a long-term vision or for short-term gains like arbitrage trades.
Compared to the spot bitcoin ETFs, which saw $4.5 billion in trading volume on launch day, only around $600 million of that represented inflows. Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust (ETHE) was the most traded on day one with a volume of nearly $458 million, accounting for almost half of the overall volume. BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) saw $243 million in trading volume, with this likely being more inflows compared to the Grayscale fund.
The other six funds all saw trading volumes below $100 million, with 21Shares’ Core Ethereum ETF (ETHC) having the least traction on day one. Overall, the trading volume reached $1.077 billion, with the funds experiencing approximately 20% of the trading volume that the spot bitcoin ETFs saw on their launch day in January.
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Helene, a New York-based reporter covering Wall Street, the rise of spot bitcoin ETFs, and crypto exchanges, is the co-host of CoinDesk’s Markets Daily show. She graduated from New York University’s business and economic reporting program and has made appearances on CBS News, Yahoo Finance, and Nasdaq TradeTalks. Helene holds BTC and ETH and can be followed on Twitter @HeleneBraunn.