The second futures-backed U.S. Bitcoin exchange-traded fund made a more inconspicuous debut than the launch of the first such investment product three days ago.
The Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF — trading under the ticker BTF — was down 2% from its inception price of $25 as of 10:54 a.m. in New York on Friday. More than 1.2 million shares worth about $31 million changed hands as of that time.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, pared an earlier advance to fall as much as 1.9% to $61,506. The largest digital currency reached an all-time high of just under $67,000 on Wednesday.
"There does seem to be a first mover advantage that plays out," said Stephane Ouellette, chief executive and co-founder of FRNT Financial Inc., a crypto-focused capital-markets platform, citing the Canadian crypto ETFs as an example. "I wouldn't intuitively think that the performance of the next one or one after is all that important from the perspective of the milestone for the asset class."
The bar is high for Valkyrie after the Tuesday debut of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (ticker BITO), which ranked as the second-busiest launch ever, taking assets in the fund over $1 billion in just two days.
"I think BITO stole its thunder — this was a much quieter launch," said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.
