Including GBTC, ETFs Hold 3.8% of Max Bitcoin Supply

What Are the Biggest Bitcoin ETFs in the World?

XBT Provider’s Bitcoin Tracker One (COINXBT) is the biggest Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) worldwide, with $7.11 billion in total assets. The pioneering Bitcoin futures ETF was launched in Sweden in 2015, and also ranks as the overall top crypto ETF.

ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) and Purpose Bitcoin ETF (BTCC) follow further behind, as the second and third biggest Bitcoin ETFs. BITO, a US-incorporated Bitcoin futures ETF, has $1.64 billion in total assets. Meanwhile, Canada-incorporated BTCC is the biggest spot Bitcoin ETF with $1.55 billion in total assets. 

Germany-incorporated ETC Group Physical Bitcoin (BTCE) is the only other Bitcoin ETF with more than a billion in total assets.

14 spot Bitcoin ETFs made it into the top 20 rankings, but only account for a 38.5% share of the total assets. In contrast, the 6 Bitcoin futures ETFs represent a disproportionate 61.6% of total assets, across the 20 biggest Bitcoin ETFs. This perhaps indicates that traditional finance leans toward derivatives for Bitcoin exposure, rather than Bitcoin itself.

Overall, the 20 biggest Bitcoin ETFs have between $54.86 million to $7.11 billion in total assets. Even so, these 20 Bitcoin ETFs’ combined $16.00 billion asset size is outweighed by Grayscale Bitcoin Trust’s $27.14 billion total assets.

How Many Bitcoins Are in ETFs?

ETFs hold around 793,034 BTC in total worldwide, representing 3.8% of the maximum 21 million Bitcoin supply. This includes Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which is pending SEC approval to convert from a close-ended unit trust to an ETF. Excluding GBTC, existing ETFs account for just 0.8% of maximum Bitcoin supply.

While ETF providers control only a minority supply of Bitcoin currently, US approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs is expected to drive up investor demand. It remains to be seen whether traditional financial institutions will have an outsized influence over Bitcoin in the future.

GBTC has the single highest Bitcoin holdings by far at 622,657 BTC, or 3.0% of the maximum Bitcoin supply. In other words, GBTC has over 3 times the combined number of Bitcoins held in all other ETFs worldwide. 

Specifically, there are 22 Bitcoin-only ETFs which hold 144,222 BTC in total. In comparison, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy and EOS creator Block.one hold approximately 174,530 BTC and 164,000 BTC respectively.

The number of Bitcoins held by spot Bitcoin ETFs range widely, from 2 BTC in Valour Bitcoin Carbon Neutral (1VBT), to 35,523 BTC in Purpose Bitcoin ETF (BTCC).

Meanwhile, 14 ETFs with mixed crypto holdings contain a smaller total of 26,156 BTC. Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (BITW) has the highest number of Bitcoins among multi-crypto ETFs, with 11,066 BTC.

Top 20 Biggest Bitcoin Futures & Spot ETFs

Global Bitcoin-only futures and spot ETFs, ranked by total assets in USD, as of December 22, 2023:

Number of Bitcoins Held in ETFs

Bitcoin holdings in spot Bitcoin ETFs and multi-crypto ETFs as of December 22, 2023:

Methodology

The study examined Bitcoin futures and spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or exchange-traded products (ETPs), as well as Bitcoin holdings in physically-backed ETFs or ETPs and other entities, based on Bloomberg, BuyBitcoinWorldwide and public data as of December 22, 2023. 

This study is for illustrative and informational purposes only, and is not financial advice. Always do your own research and be careful when putting your money into any crypto or financial asset.

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Curious to find out more about our previous research studies & statistics? Check out this one we did on public companies’ Bitcoin holdings.