BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Trading exchange-traded fund (ETF), surged to $3.35 billion during the trading day of Oct. 29, its highest level in over six months.
One ETF analyst believes the spike in trading volume is driven by panic buying of Bitcoin BTC$72,313, which is currently trading for $72,390 — only a 2% move away from reaching a new all-time high.
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Speculative frenzy among ETF buyers confirmed, suggests analyst
“FOMO confirmed,” Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said in an Oct. 29 X post citing data showing BlackRock daily inflows clocked $599.8 million.
Across the 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs trading in the United States, total inflows for the day reached $827 million, according to CoinGlass data.
Balchunas’ claim came just hours after he mulled whether the massive trading volume across spot Bitcoin ETFs may be a surge in speculative buyers or just heightened activity from arbitrage traders.
“If this is a FOMO frenzy, we’ll see it show up in the flows next few nights. If not, it means it’s due to HF [high frequency] arb trading or something like that,” he wrote.
“IBIT not alone — although by far the most — as all the main BTC ETFs saw elevated volume [the] past two days,” Balchunas added.
Echoing a similar sentiment, Galaxy Digital’s head of research Alex Thorn pointed out that across the board, Oct. 29 was the third “highest Bitcoin ETF trade volume day since April 1, 2024.”
Throughout the Oct. 29 trading day, spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US saw a combined trading volume of $4.64 billion, with IBIT representing around 38%.
IBIT had the highest volume, with the second-highest volume from Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) with inflows of $390.32 million for the day.
A higher trading volume indicates strong liquidity and increased trading activity in the ETF but does not reflect new capital flowing into the funds.
BTC is on the brink of tapping its current ATH
As for new capital entering IBIT, the ETF has witnessed an unbroken inflow streak over the last twelve days, with total inflows reaching approximately $3.20 billion since recording a net-zero flow day on Oct. 10, according to Farside data.
It comes as Bitcoin reached above $70,000 on Oct. 29 for the first time since June 6, a crucial price level that traders have been watching closely.
Since the Bitcoin halving in April, Bitcoin had been consolidating in a range between $54,147 and $69,500.
Crypto analyst Matthew Hyland pointed out that on Oct. 29, Bitcoin completed its “second highest daily candle in history.”
The breakdown of ETF buying and selling volumes noticed Fidelity following BlackRock with $548 million, at the same time as Grayscale reached $388 million. ARK Invest and Bitwise brought $136 million and $one hundred thirty million, respectively, with other key players, inclusive of VanEck, Invesco, and WisdomTree, contributing to the day’s unheard of trading volumes. Some point to those figures as a signal of Bitcoin’s increasing integration inside traditional financial markets.
The trading surge coincided with Bitcoin’s approach in the direction of a brand new all-time excessive. Prices hovered simply underneath $73,000, raising anticipation among marketplace observers approximately the cryptocurrency’s capacity to interrupt preceding statistics.
The heightened buying and selling activity and Bitcoin’s close to-record charge level mirror a mounting interest from institutional traders and heightened expectancies amongst retail investors.
The sturdy marketplace hobby also caused tremendous losses for brief-dealers, with approximately $a hundred and fifteen million in Bitcoin short positions liquidated over the past 24 hours. This wave of liquidations highlights the volatility of cryptocurrency markets even as they gain broader acceptance in economic circles.
