Bitcoin - ETFs Push Towards New Record

What do Bitcoin ETFs have in store for us this week? New record in sight if Grayscale doesn’t play the spoilsport?

Bitcoin – Demand vs Supply

Last week, the ETFs have net absorbed 7,376 bitcoins. This is 120 % of the bitcoins that were mined during the same period.

The Grayscale GBTC ETF once again spoiled the party with outflows representing 10,867 bitcoins. It is also worth noting that the ARK Capital ETF has, for the first time, suffered net weekly outflows amounting to 1,154 bitcoins.

Overall, BlackRock is still leading the race with 264,000 BTC held on behalf of its clients. That’s 1.35% of all bitcoins in circulation, or nearly 19 billion dollars.

Fidelity is second with 150,000 BTC (~11 billion dollars). Ark completes the podium with 43,000 BTC.

Unfortunately, the outflows from the GBTC ETF are currently preventing the push towards 100,000 dollars. The following chart is a mirror image of the BTC quantities held by Grayscale (red) and BlackRock (green).

This almost perfect symmetry suggests that a good part of the BTC from the GBTC ETF is being directly transferred into BlackRock’s ETF. As a reminder, Grayscale has management fees more than 6 times higher than those of BlackRock, hence the exodus of its clients.

In short, it’s not out of the question that a good portion of Blackrock’s bitcoins primarily come from a shift from the GBTC ETF. If so, the net entries into the ETFs should not make an extraordinary leap once the GBTC ETF is empty.

Many of you asked for an updated flippening chart. Here it is, including today's $IBIT inflows of $306m & $GBTC outflows @Grayscale ‘s $GBTC vs @BlackRock ‘s $IBIT pic.twitter.com/Fhax008VKP

— HODL15Capital 🇺🇸 (@HODL15Capital) April 6, 2024

Here is a crude summary of supply and demand since the launch of the ETFs on January 10 based on on-chain movements.

Supply:

-78,300 BTC mined.
-296,500 BTC sold by the GBTC ETF.
-189,402 BTC sold by various entities.

Demand:

-519,500 BTC bought by the ETFs.
-25,096 bought by Microstrategy, the firm of Michael Saylor.
-19,606 BTC bought by ‘Mr. 100’.

Knowing that the supply from the rewards distributed at each block will be halved from the halving scheduled for April 19. This shock to the supply should help bitcoin find its cruising pace towards new highs.

Indeed, most miners sell all their bitcoin production. In February, if the heavyweights sold almost nothing (Riot, Cleanspark, Hive, Marathon), eight out of the fourteen major North American miners sold 100 %, or even more, of their harvest.

Currently, BlackRock’s BTC purchases more than compensate for all the bitcoins mined at any given time. Post halving, it’s even equivalent to twice the natural supply of BTC that its ETF will gobble up.

Knowing that according to the order book of the Coinbase exchange, the selling pressure is only 1,000 bitcoins between the current price and 75,000 dollars for one bitcoin:

🟩 The Bitcoin order book is very thin. No sell wall to speak of (less than 1000 BTC on Coinbase to $75,000)👇 Bullish 🟩 pic.twitter.com/CykahYof8o

— HODL15Capital 🇺🇸 (@HODL15Capital) April 8, 2024

In the absence of significant outflows from the GBTC ETF, matters could become clearer over the coming days or weeks. Especially since Chinese ETFs are on their way…