New Bitcoin Futures ETF Becomes Second Most Traded Fund Of All Time

The new Bitcoin Futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) from ProShares has debuted as the second most traded fund of all time.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence, more than 24 million shares of BITO changed hands for a total turnover of nearly $1 billion. As far as first-day trading, BITO comes in second only to BlackRock's carbon fund ETF. 

Eric Balchunas, senior ETF strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence said BITO had definitely exceeded expectations.

"$BITO just about at $1b in total volume today (curr $993m but trades still trickling in). Easily the biggest Day One of any ETF in terms of 'natural' volume. It also traded more than 99.5% of all ETFs (incl some bigs like $DIA, $ARKK, $SLV). It def defied our expectations.."

Balchunas notes that the ETF ranks in second place even after considering that many of the other big-name products launched using the 'BYOA' (Bring your own assets) strategy, which is when an entity creates an ETF that is similar to one that already exists and is popular, and pours its own assets into it.

"If we don't exclude ETFs where their Day One volume was literally one pre-planned giant investor or BYOA (not natural), it still ranks #2 overall. Here's that list. The reason some of these shouldn't be included IMO is they don't really represent grassroots interest."

While many in the crypto space were critical of the fact that the ETF was futures-based, ProShares' global investment strategist Simeon Hyman said the new product is an "easy, convenient, but also a very robust solution for Bitcoin exposure that someone can just put in their regular brokerage account in the US."

"There are as you know, there are a lot of folks who don't want to deal with the wallets and cold key and the warm key and the 'where did I put my key?' and we think this is a very compelling solution for them where they just can really invest in Bitcoin the same way they've invested in all the other asset classes in their portfolio."

BITO opened up at $41, and is currently trading at $43.