Bitcoin ETFs Could Triple Gold Funds Within 5 Years

U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds needed less than two years to approach $120 billion in assets, a pace that took gold ETFs well over a decade to match, Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said.

• Bitcoin ETFs reached $120 billion in assets within two years, a pace that outran gold ETFs.
• Institutions control $100 trillion in assets, and few have added bitcoin exposure yet.
• Spot ETFs offer direct bitcoin exposure without the leverage risk of treasury company stocks.

Balchunas shared the numbers in an interview with CoinShares, the digital asset manager behind the BRRR ). The funds pulled in $38 billion in net new money in their first year. That was more than double the $10 billion to $15 billion his team had projected.

By the time of the interview, net inflows had grown to about $40 billion, and bitcoin’s price gains had pushed total assets to nearly $120 billion, just shy of gold ETFs at that point. That inflow figure was still the hardest number for any ETF to grow, Balchunas said, since assets can rise on price alone without new money coming in.

Balchunas said at the time that bitcoin ETFs could triple the size of gold ETFs within three to five years, since institutions that manage far more money than the entire crypto market have only begun to allocate toward bitcoin.