Ether ETFs exceed $100M inflows in debut trading
US exchange-traded funds investing directly in Ether achieved overall net inflows of $107 million on their first day of trading in launches that will provide a window onto mainstream crypto demand outside of Bitcoin.
BlackRock Inc.’s iShares Ethereum Trust posted the highest level of subscriptions on Tuesday, $267 million, followed by Bitwise Ethereum on $204 million and the Fidelity Ethereum Fund with $71 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Over $1 billion worth of shares traded across the nine ETFs, whose launch comes six months after US regulators permitted inaugural US spot-Bitcoin ETFs. The latter have attracted a net inflow of over $17 billion this year.
Ether is the No. 2 digital asset and popular for blockchain-based financial services but the token’s market value is still less than a third of Bitcoin’s, spurring expectations of smaller inflows compared with Bitcoin ETFs.
The Bitcoin funds benefited from a controversial narrative that pitches the top token as digital gold, a spin that Ether lacks. The Ether funds also won’t offer so-called staking rewards for blockchain maintenance, a return that can be harnessed by owning the token directly.
“The flows are in line with our expectation,” said Vivien Wong, a partner at crypto investor HashKey Capital. She expects $3 billion to $5 billion of net inflows for the Ether portfolios over the next six months.
Eight new Ether funds listed on Tuesday while the more than six-year-old Grayscale Ethereum Trust — the largest for Ether with assets of $8.6 billion — converted from a closed-end structure into an ETF. The conversion smooths exits for arbitragers and the product saw a net outflow of $484 million.
There’s a risk such outflows could counteract the
Read more on investmentnews.com
