ARK's Bitcoin ETF Outflows Eclipse Grayscale's GBTC, Marking a Watershed Moment

ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) experienced its highest daily outflow of $87 million, exceeding Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) for the first time since the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US. ARKB has lost $300,000 in assets over the past two days, while GBTC continues to record outflows, losing $81.9 million on April 2. Despite these outflows, ARKB remains the third largest spot ETF with $2.2 billion in assets under management.

ARK's Bitcoin ETF Witnesses Unprecedented Outflows, Surpassing Grayscale's GBTC

On April 2nd, ARK 21 Shares Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF), known as ARKB, experienced an unprecedented outflow of $87.5 million, the first instance of daily outflows exceeding those of Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) since the introduction of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States.

According to preliminary data from Farside Investors, ARKB faced an exodus of assets amounting to approximately 1,300 BTC on April 2nd. This marks the second consecutive day of outflows for the fund, following a $300,000 decline in assets on its inaugural day of outflows, April 1st.

Grayscale, which has consistently witnessed outflows every trading day since its transition into a spot ETF, incurred an additional $81.9 million daily outflow, a relatively subdued amount compared to its average daily outflow of $254 million over the preceding five trading sessions. Grayscale has shed a staggering $15.1 billion over the past three months alone.

Despite ARKB and GBTC's outflows, a hefty inflow of $150.5 million into BlackRock's fund resulted in a net aggregate inflow of $40.3 million for the day.

Despite the recent outflows, ARKB remains the third largest among the ten newly introduced spot ETFs, excluding Grayscale, with $2.2 billion in assets under management (AUM). It trails behind BlackRock's and Fidelity's funds, which boast AUMs of $14.1 billion and $7.6 billion, respectively.

ARKB ranks as the sixth largest holder of BTC among funds, corporations, and miners, currently possessing a total of 44,662 BTC, as per data from HODL15Capital.

Despite losing a significant 291,000 Bitcoin since its conversion into an ETF, GBTC maintains its dominance in terms of total Bitcoin held, with approximately 329,000 Bitcoin on its books as of publication time.

Since the beginning of April, the price of Bitcoin has been on a downward trajectory, dropping roughly 9% from last week's high of $71,500 and briefly dipping below $65,000 on April 3rd amid escalating ETF outflows.

On April 2nd, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas highlighted the launch of the first-ever 2x and -2x leveraged spot Bitcoin ETFs, traded under the tickers BITU and SBIT, respectively.

Balchunas projected these recent ETFs into the top five most volatile ETFs in the US, noting a standard deviation of approximately 150%.

He further pointed out that Bitcoin ETFs traded an impressive volume of $111 billion in March, nearly three times the combined volume of February and January.

This article has been updated to include inflow data for BlackRock.