VanEck’s spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) has experienced a sudden and drastic trading volume uptick, leaving market commentators looking for the reason why.
VanEck’s fund — which sports the ticker “HODL” — saw $258 million in trading volume on Feb. 20, a nearly 15 times increase in volume from the previous day, according to data shared to X by senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.
$HODL is going wild today with $258m in volume already, a 14x jump over its daily average, and it's not one big investor (which would make sense) but rather 32,000 individual trades, which is 60x its avg. Not sure how to explain.. maybe it was added to a platform over wknd ? pic.twitter.com/VTkjboS0ff
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 20, 2024
VanEck’s sudden volume spike was from an influx of around 32,000 individual trades — which Balchunas noted was 60 times its average — and not from a single large investor, which he said “would make sense.”
“Still haven’t figured out what happened,” Balchunas wrote in a follow-up X post five hours later.
“No one knows. Given how sudden and explosive the increase in number of trades was (500 trades Friday, 50,000 trades today) I'm wondering if some Reddit or TikTok influencer type recommended them to their followers. Feels retail army-ish,” he added.
“WTF? ETF Unsolved Mysteries will continue after a word from our sponsors…”
On Feb. 15, VanEck filed a notice to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission outlining it would drop fees for its ETF from 0.25% to 0.20% beginning Feb. 21, 5 basis points below that of the fees charged by the market leaders BlackRock and Fidelity.
The largest fund issuer BlackRock pledged to waive fees on its iShares fund until it reached $5 billion AUM. Since hitting that milestone on Feb. 15, BlackRock will charge 0.25% fees on all new investment into its fund.
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Trading volumes on WisdomTree’s Bitcoin Fund (WBTC) were also “popping off,” witnessing a roughly 1,200% jump from its average to $154 million in total daily volume on Feb. 20, per Bloomberg data cited by Balchunas.
More interesting-ness: $BTCW also popping off, $154m trades, 12x its avg and 25x its assets via 23,000 indiv trades. For context, it saw a mere 221 trades on Friday. At the same time $IBIT volume is elevated but not crazy like this. WTF? ETF Unsolved Mysteries will continue after… pic.twitter.com/IXQmCKuCWl
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 20, 2024
WBTC saw 23,000 individual trades go through on Feb. 20, a significant increase from a “mere 221 trades on Friday,” added Balchunas.
The trading volume increase across the HODL and WBTC funds came around a time of “elevated but not crazy” volume on market-leading funds, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF.
VanEck’s Bitcoin Trust currently stands as the seventh-largest spot Bitcoin ETF, commanding $191.9 million in assets under management (AUM), while WisdomTree’s fund is the smallest with just $29.4 million AUM, per Dune Analytics data.
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