Crypto Investments, Reflections, and Supporting Hackers

Eric Balchunas of Bloomberg Intelligence explains why the spot Bitcoin ETFs have made TradFi move at the speed of crypto — and why he’s uncertain spot Ether ETFs will be approved.

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In this episode, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, discussed the performance of Bitcoin ETFs since their launch two months ago. 

Balchunas noted that the ETFs' performance exceeded his expectations, with a faster and more intense "second wind" than anticipated. He attributed this to a combination of asset managers buying in, retail interest, and the "ETF effect" where the knowledge of incoming flows encourages non-ETF investors to buy. 

Balchunas also predicted that BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF would likely be the most successful of the nine new spot Bitcoin ETFs, while also doubting that any of the smaller issuers would bow out. 

He also discussed the potential for spot Ether ETFs, but was less optimistic about their success compared to Bitcoin ETFs.

Learn more: Bitcoin ETFs Explained: What Are They & How Do They Work?

Show highlights | 

• Why the Bitcoin ETF performance in the first couple of weeks exceeded Eric's expectations
• Whether Eric had ever seen the kind of hype around Bitcoin ETFs occur with other ETFs
• How there has been a lot of retail interest in these past few weeks
• Eric's insights into how Bitcoin reached all-time highs again this week
• Whether a good portion of the ETF volumes is sustainable and what's driving those large volumes
• Whether it's safe to say that BlackRock is the winner among issuers
• Whether the smaller issuers in terms of volume and AUM will close their ETFs
• When options on Bitcoin ETFs will be approved
• Whether in-kind redemptions will be allowed in the near future and the role of politics in that
• Whether Grayscale will have to reduce its fees considering the huge outflows from GBTC
• Why Eric believes that spot ether ETFs won't have as much demand as the bitcoin ETFs did
• Reasons the SEC could use to reject spot ether ETFs
• Whether issuers will rebalance their portfolios at the end of quarters
• What Eric expects to see in terms of inflows by year’s end 

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Guest | 

Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence

Previous appearances on Unchained:

Why Spot Bitcoin ETFs Are Likely to Finally Start Trading on Thursday

Will a Spot Bitcoin ETF Finally Get Approved?

Links | 

Recent coverage on Unchained of Bitcoin’s surge: 

How the Bitcoins in Your ETF Get Sourced: The Real Story

Should You Sell Bitcoin Now That It’s Nearing Its All-Time High?

Miners Appear to Sell $69 Million Worth of Decade-Old Bitcoin

Bitcoin Hits New All-Time High Above $69,000, Presaging More Potential Gains

Previous coverage on the Unchained podcast of spot Bitcoin ETFs:

Bitcoin’s Price Is Way Up. And $48 Trillion in Wealth Just Got Access

Why Some Brokerage Firms Are Blocking Access to Spot Bitcoin ETFs

Why the SEC May Want Cash Creation of Spot Bitcoin ETFs

Why It Looks Like BlackRock Could Win America’s First Spot Bitcoin ETF

The 4 Factors That Will Determine Which Spot Bitcoin ETFs Win Market Share

How Much Money Will Flow Into Bitcoin ETFs? Here’s One Projection

Eric’s tweet on $IBITsmashing $788m 

Ethereum spot ETF:

BitMEX Blog: Ethereum ETFs & Staking

Eric’s tweet on ether ETFs 

Unchained: 

Why Spot Ether ETFs Likely Won’t Steal Bitcoin’s Thunder — Even if Staking Is Included

Spot Ether ETFs Could Introduce New Concentration Risk in Ethereum: S&P Global

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Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC.  Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz. 

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