Spot bitcoin ETF monthly trading volume nearly tripled in March, hits $111 billion

Quick Take

  • Cumulative monthly trading volume for spot bitcoin ETFs nearly tripled last month when compared to February. 
  • March’s volume hit $111 billion versus February’s total of $42 billion.

March was a banner month for volume in the nascent spot bitcoin ETFs. 

In March, trading volume for spot bitcoin ETFs surged to $111 million, nearly tripling February's total of $42.2 billion, according to Yahoo Finance compiled on The Block Data Dashboard. February marked the first full month of trading since the products debuted on January 11, and the significant increase in March highlights the growing interest in these new crypto-based financial instruments. 

Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas took to X to point out how important last month was in terms of total trading volume. "Bitcoin ETFs traded $111 billion in March, which is just about triple what they did in February and January," he said. "I can't imagine April will be bigger but who knows."

BlackRock, Fidelity and Grayscale dominate

The three spot ETFs issued by Grayscale, BlackRock and Fidelity continue to dominate trading volume. After Monday's trading, however, Grayscale's GBTC fund surpassed $15 billion in total outflows since trading began in January. In bitcoin terms, GBTC, a decade-old trust that Grayscale converted into a spot bitcoin ETF two months ago, has dropped 46% from around 619,000 BTC to 333,619 BTC ($22 billion) since it started trading as an ETF, per CoinGlass.

In dollar terms, last month, BlackRock and Fidelity's spot bitcoin ETFs hit about $18 billion and $10 billion, respectively, in assets under management, according to CoinShares data. In terms of inflows, the products issued by BlackRock and Fidelity have been the most successful.

During yesterday's trading, spot bitcoin ETFs returned to net outflows after recording net inflows every trading day last week. Net outflows for Monday were $85.7 million after Grayscale’s fund shed $302.6 million, according to CoinGlass data.


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About Author

RT Watson is a senior reporter at The Block who covers a wide array of topics including U.S.-based companies, blockchain gaming and NFTs. Formerly covered entertainment at The Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. and the creator economy while focusing primarily on technological disruption across media. Previous to that he covered corporate, economic and political news in Brazil while at Bloomberg. RT has interviewed a diverse cast of characters including CEOs, media moguls, top influencers, politicians, blue-collar workers, drug traffickers and convicted criminals. Holds a master's degree in Digital Sociology.

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