Another One: Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF to Commence Trading on Friday

The Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF is slated to commence trading on the Nasdaq stock market on Friday, Oct 22, just four days after the first-ever BTC futures fund was launched.

Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas has confirmed that the Valkyrie fund will be launching on Friday after initially stating it would be trading today.

He added that the firm has also changed its ticker from BTFD to BTF, commenting that the Securities and Exchange Commission “probably wasn’t a fan” of the former. BTFD is an acronym for “buy the f*cking dip” in crypto circles.

I had said this was launching tmrw it’s actually going to be on Friday. sorry about that. https://t.co/fqaGwjgscO

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) October 20, 2021

Later on, a company representative confirmed to Bloomberg that the ETF is indeed scheduled to launch on Friday.

VanEck Bitcoin Fund on Monday

Just like ProShares, the Valkyrie product will not be investing directly in Bitcoin but will seek to purchase a number of BTC futures contracts. It will attempt to ensure that the total value of BTC underlying the futures contracts held by the fund is as close to 100% of the net assets as possible.

The next Bitcoin futures fund to launch will be the VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF which is expected to commence trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker XBTF on Monday, Oct 25.

Judging by the ProShares performance, these two could also see high demand from institutional investors wanting exposure to the world’s largest digital asset.

The ProShares fund, which was launched on Tuesday, notched up a record $1 billion in trade volume on its first day, making it the second-highest ever fund to do so.

The accolades did not stop there, BITO amassed a billion dollars in assets under management (AUM) within its first two days of trading. This new record smashed was previously held by a gold-based fund that reached $1 billion after its first three days.

Poetically Appropriate

Balchunas compared it to gold, commenting that it was poetically appropriate that a BTC fund should beat it.

“$BITO assets up to $1.1b after today, making it the fastest ETF to get to $1b (2 days) breaking $GLD’s 18yr old record (3 days), which is poetically apropos.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this. I bet ProShares is even shocked.” – he added.

Bitcoin prices have rallied to an all-time high on the back of the bullish momentum. On Oct 20, BTC peaked at a touch over $67K, according to Tradingview. It has since retreated slightly to change hands at $65,000 at the time of writing.