According to the most famous Bitcoin billionaire in the world, new Bitcoin ETFs from Fidelity and BlackRock have turned out to be more successful than he had ever imagined.
Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, said that they had thought Bitcoin was gold’s competitor, but it had run up the leaderboard.
He said that it had begun to inch closer to competing with S&P 500 Index ETFs.
Bitcoin ETFs
According to Saylor, it is likely that Bitcoin ETFs will surpass gold ETFs in the near future. Currently, the latter are the largest commodity ETFs available in the United States.
Bitcoin ETFs were launched less than two months ago and data from BitMEX Research shows that since then, their total net inflows have reached an impressive $8.5 billion.
This is despite the massive outflows that were recorded from the converted Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) during the same period.
The next largest funds in the market are the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) of BlackRock and the Fidelity Wise Bitcoin Origin Trust (FBTC).
These two ETFs recorded the largest inflows seen in the history of any ETF within 30 days of their initial launch.
These funds have now made it to the top 20 most actively traded ETFs on a daily basis. On average, Bitcoin ETFs recorded a volume of $6 billion in a day in the previous week, which is even more than Microsoft.
Universal API
Saylor said that investors consider ETFs to be like ‘universal API’ because they enable them to trade in and out of various funds and they are now able to use them to gain Bitcoin access.
He said that the same was applicable in the case of issuing credit, or trading volatility. Before the launch of these ETFs, it was a slow process to take out a loan against your Bitcoin holdings.
Moreover, such loans also carried a higher interest rate. Now, people have the option of using their shares of an ETF as a down payment on a mortgage.
This can be done via their trusted broker-dealer, such as Merrill Lynch, or J.P. Morgan. Saylor said that for 90% of mainstream investors, the ETFs had opened up a complete world of functionality, opportunity and awareness.
He went on to say that this can be extremely important for the entire network.
MicroStrategy
Saylor’s firm, MicroStrategy, currently holds the title of being the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world.
The company’s current Bitcoin holdings on its balance sheet are around 193,000 tokens. Overall, the company has already managed to make 100% returns on its investment up till now.
In addition, the company does not have any intention of stopping its accumulation of the pioneer crypto token.
It is planning to use the funds from an upcoming sale of convertible notes worth $700 million to buy more BTC tokens.