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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 past 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:

Previous coverage on the Unchained podcast of spot Bitcoin ETFs:

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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