The value of assets under management (AUM) held by US-based spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded-funds (ETFs) may eclipse that of gold ETFs by as early as January 2025.
US Spot Bitcoin ETFs Could Soon Surpass Spot Gold ETFs
In a recent post shared on X, senior analyst at Bloomberg, Eric Balchunas, observed that assets held in US-based spot BTC ETFs are currently valued at $84 billion, roughly 67% of the AUM held by US-based spot gold ETFs.
Notably, it has not even been a year since the first spot BTC ETF was approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The financial regulator gave the greenlight to BTC ETF’s first spot in January 2024.
According to Balchunas, spot Bitcoin ETFs have a “decent shot” at surpassing the value of assets held by spot gold ETFs by early next year. The analyst acknowledged that they originally expected it would take 3 to 4 years to reach such a milestone.
Data from etf.com shows that spot gold ETFs in the US have an AUM of $138.36 billion across 35 ETFs traded on the US markets.
Among these, the largest spot gold ETF, by far, is State Street’s SPDR Gold Trust, with AUM worth $78.18 billion. This is followed by BlackRock’s IShares Gold Trust, with $33.58 billion in AUM, and State Street’s SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust holds $9.48 billion in AUM.
In comparison, data from SoSoValue indicates that total net assets held across US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs stand at $90.6 billion.
The largest ETFs are BlackRock’s IBIT with $39.92 in AUM, Grayscale’s GBTC with $19.12 billion, and Fidelity’s FBTC with $16.73 billion in AUM.
It is worth noting that BlackRock’s BTC ETF has already surpassed its gold counterpart in total AUM. On November 11, the total net inflow in BTC spot ETFs stood at $1.11 billion, the second-highest behind $1.38 billion recorded on November 7.
Bitcoin Accumulation Continues To Rise
The rising popularity of spot BTC ETFs highlights the increasing institutional interest in the cryptocurrency, but it’s not just institutional players who are accumulating Bitcoin.
Many private entities and sovereign nations are also amassing BTC to hedge against inflation. For instance, business intelligence firm MicroStrategy owns 252,220 BTC, worth more than $21 billion at current market prices.
MicroStrategy’s play has been replicated by companies like Tesla, Japan’s Metaplanet, and Semler Scientific, which have all added BTC to their respective balance sheets.
According to data from Arkham Intelligence, El Salvador currently holds close to 5,900 BTC, while Bhutan owns about 12,568 BTC, worth more than a billion USD.
While Bitcoin continues to reach new all-time highs (ATHs), investors should exercise caution and avoid being overly enthusiastic about the asset’s future price movements since quick, sharp pullbacks can lead to massive liquidations.
BTC trades at $86,015 at press time, up 4.9% in the past 24 hours. The leading cryptocurrency commands a total market cap of $1.70 trillion.
