Six months after big brother Bitcoin debuted on Wall Street, it was time for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum, to enter the spotlight.
Nine U.S.-listed spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have only been trading for one day, but data reveals they’re off to a “solid” start — with over $1 billion flooding into the much-awaited investment products.
Ether ETFs Enjoy A Strong Debut
Data compiled by Bloomberg shows that on their first day of trading, the newly launched United States spot Ether exchange-traded funds generated nearly $1.1 billion in cumulative trading volume.
According to SoSoValue, of this $1.1 billion, the funds posted a net inflow of $106.6 million. Despite massive outflows from Grayscale’s newly converted Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which hit $484 million, the combined total inflows from the other eight funds have pushed the overall performance into positive territory.
BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) led the pack with $267 million in inflows, followed closely by the Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW), which clocked in $204 million in net inflows.
ETH ETFs started trading on American stock exchanges on July 23 after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave the funds the final blessing on July 22.
ETH Price Tumbles On Day 1 Of Ether ETFs
With the overall trading volume topping $1.08 billion, the ETFs registered approximately 23% of the volume that the spot Bitcoin ETFs saw on their debut day on January 11.
At the time, investors traded over $4.6 billion worth of shares of the extremely popular BTC-based funds on their first day, making it one of the most successful ETF launches in U.S. history. Many analysts had suggested that the Ether products mark another big win for the crypto industry’s efforts to thrust digital assets into the mainstream, although the volume and inflow for the ETH ETFs would not match Bitcoin’s because of the lack of a staking mechanism.
Nonetheless, yesterday was a successful launch for the newborn Ethereum funds. “Very solid first day,” Bloomberg’s ETF analyst James Seyffart noted.
However, the price of the industry’s second-most valuable digital coin fell slightly despite the rather successful debut. CoinGecko shows that ETH is changing hands for $3,464 per coin, down 1.4% in the last 24 hours as investors adopt a wait-and-see approach.
