Bitcoin, a popular digital currency, has seen its popularity skyrocket ever since spot Bitcoin ETFs were introduced in the United States for the first time on October 12, 2023. Year-to-date returns for Bitcoin space are registered at 65%, making the asset outshine other Midwest ETFs.
Greater than 70 billion dollars in assets have been raised by bitcoin exchange-traded funds which is more than half the entire market of physical gold exchange-traded funds that stand approximately over 130 billion dollars.
There was a staggering rise in the amount raised by Bitcoin ETFs worth 2.2 billion dollars in a single week, attributed to the people’s anxieties about the upcoming US presidential elections.
With the launch of Bitcoin ETFs in the middle of January, there have been significant changes in the digital asset investments. Such events aid in forecasting investment movements with the soaring total assets touching the 70 billion mark with gold being physically dethroned.
As more and more investors are emotionally bullish, Bitcoin performance upside turns the tables on the asset gold for the time being.
Though gold is considered the go-to asset for most investors, contemporary investors have been increasingly looking elsewhere, with crypto assets becoming a favorite since the product bitcoin gained legal approval in January.
On the 14th of July, during an X post, Nate Geraci who dazzles as the cofounder of ETF Institute and currently the president of ETF Store, noted that total assets under management (AUM) amongst Bitcoin ETFs had hit the top of the total worth of $70 billion in a span of 10 months. This has led to the total assets in Bitcoin ETFs growing more than the 50% of the overall physical gold ETFs valued at 130 billion US dollars that has existed for nearly two decades.
In order to put things into context, Matt Hougan, the Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise said that since the trust was approved in January this year, the bitcoin trust IBIT has had net inflows of up to 25.8 billion US dollars. In contrast, its Gold Trust GLD has had net inflows of only 20.9 billion dollars since it was launched in November 2004.
Also, YTD outflow of Bitcoin ETFs has reached 24 billion dollars while 2 billion dollars is nearly the outflow value of gold. Growing inflows saw BTC growing about 65% from the beginning of the year while gold returns came in lower at 32% according to Nate Geraci.
Last week in particular Bitcoin ETFs were the main responsible for most of net flows reported across the crypto ETFs, logging $2.2 billion in net inflows. Per CoinShares, the reasons for the large inflow were the high expectations concerning the presidential election which is in less than 24 hours.
With the renewed interest from crypto investors towards the election, there is speculation that a Trump win would bring Bitcoin to even greater heights.
