From neck to elbow. Just four months ago, on January 10, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finally approved 11 spot bitcoin ETFs at the end of a media-political imbroglio that was as comical as it was historic. Since then, these financial products have broken all records of their kind, and we have not experienced such enthusiasm even at the giant BlackRock! Volumes, capital inflows, institutional demand, all the lights are green for these ETFs indexed to the value of the first cryptocurrency in the market, but in the shadow of these good numbers, a fierce battle has begun for who will be the leader in this. new market. Grayscale was the top performer early on, but Larry Fink has since brought his striking power to bear, and BlackRock is gradually catching up, now followed by GBTC. We balance this duel on the financial top.
The BlackRock IBIT ETF is gaining market share week after week
A quick look back to better understand the intersecting trajectories of these two industry leaders. The day after the SEC announcement, Grayscale already owned 30 billion dollars of assets under management because his ETF was a simple conversion of his fund to VOP, while Black stone started almost in zero. As we can see in the two charts below, in terms of volume or bitcoins held, Michael Sonnenshein’s company is dominating the debate head on in the first weeks of listing and selling.
According to the data of Blockafter two months of activity, the difference is still significant because the gray levels are on 23.4 billion dollars of assets under management (AUM), while its competitor is only 4.4 billion. But if we shift in time and take the numbers from Tuesday, April 9we are witnessing hell overhaul Larry Fink’s Teams! In the latest score, the gap with BlackRock’s displays has narrowed significantly 18.2 billion AUM vs 23.2 for grayscale. At this rate, there is not much doubt about the name of the future market leader.
Grayscale’s Bitcoin eTF is losing momentum against its competitors
And in the two charts above, we can clearly see the trend slowly reversing over the weeks GTC (in blue) is gradually losing dominance in the face of an inexorable rise Black stone (in light green). In terms of cumulative volumes on the left chart, GBCT’s share will increase from 50% when the ETF is launched 23.5% when last read last Tuesday. It records IBIT on this day 128.7 million input dollars when recording in grayscale 154.9 million release, as a symbol of dynamism in this market.
There are several in explaining this situation factors take into account and in particular the sale of numerous shares of VOP companies Genesis. Genesis, currently in bankruptcy, was recently approved by the courts for sale 1.3 billion dollars of its shares in the fund, now the ETF, and this may partly explain these negative volumes. This is an opinionEric Balchunassenior ETF analyst at the company Bloomberg, who adds that management fees they are also higher in the same shades of gray and that at the time of selection some clients left for a competitor: the giant BlackRock.
Finally, a few words about the third aggressor in this economic war: Fidelity. The company led by Abigail Johnson, still in the shadow of these two competitors, is also positioning itself as a serious competitor at the top of the podium and already dreams, like others, of being able to sell Ethereum ETFs soon, even the specificity of the performance offering thanks staking out. But that’s another topic…