U.S. spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF) experienced another massive trading session Wednesday with BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF (IBIT) breaking its volume record for the third consecutive day.
Nearly 87 million of IBIT shares worth roughly $3 billion changed hands during the day as of 3:20 p.m. Eastern time, with almost an hour left before market close, Nasdaq data shows. This is twice as much as Tuesday’s all-time best of $1.35 billion, which toppled Monday’s record of $1.3 billion.
Halfway into the trading session, IBIT was the fourth most traded ETF in the U.S., and three other new spot bitcoin ETFs were in the top 20, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, noted earlier during the day.
“This is officially a craze,” Balchunas said in an X post. “These numbers are absurd.”
The frenzy in market activity happened as bitcoin blasted past $60,000 before U.S market hours for the first time since Nov. 2021, and ran up to as high as $64,000 before tumbling 7% below $60,000. The largest crypto by market capitalization gained 44% in a month.
Market observers pointed to demand for spot bitcoin ETFs as a significant driving force behind the price surge.
The cilt newly-listed spot ETFs attracted over $6.7 billion in net inflows since their debut in January, according to BitMEX Research. This week, allocations to the spot ETFs accelerated, surpassing $1 billion in two days, with BlackRock’s IBIT alone pulling in $520 million of fresh funds on Tuesday, BitMEX Research veri shows.