Hong Kong Spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs See Only $11M in Volume on First Trading Day

Hong Kong’s new spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded over HK$87.58 million ($11.2 million) in trading volume on their first trading day. In contrast, the United States spot BTC ETFs recorded a staggering $4.6 billion in trading volumes on the very first day. On April 30, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd. (HKEX) officially listed the six spot crypto ETFs managed by China Asset Management, Harvest Global, and Bosera.

According to data from the HKEX, China Asset Management’s “ChinaAMC BTC ETF” led in trading volume, logging HK$37.16 million on the day. The ChinaAMC ETH ETF recorded the second-largest turnover among the six products, with a volume of HK$12.66 million. Harvest saw HK$17.89 in its spot Bitcoin ETF’s volume and HK$17.89 in Ether’s. Meanwhile, Bosera HashKey BTC ETF recorded HK$12.44 million and its Ether ETF’s volume was HK$2.48 on the first day of trading.

Justin d’Anethan, head of APAC business development at crypto market maker Keyrock, told The Block that despite potential overhype and falling short of expectations, he believes “the spot ETFs in HK are a success.” He explained that the spot ETFs in Hong Kong don’t have as much trading volume as spot BTC ETFs in the US, but the difference is because the markets are so different.

On Tuesday, HKEX highlighted investor interest in its crypto futures ETFs — Samsung BTC Futures Active ETF, CSOP BTC Futures ETF and CSOP Ether Futures ETF — which were first launched in late 2022. In the first quarter of 2024, these three ETFs gathered $529 million in net inflows. This boosted the excitement surrounding the launch of the spot BTC and ETH ETFs on April 30.

Bitcoin Falls Below $62K

Even with the launch of BTC and ETH ETFs in Hong Kong, the overall sentiment in the crypto industry remains negative. Possibly influenced by disappointing figures from Asia, BTC dumped below $61,000 for the first time in 11 days. Bitcoin began the previous week with positive momentum, briefly exceeding $67,000. However, it failed to maintain this upward trend and started to lose value, reaching a low of $60,700 on April 30.

As of writing, BTC is trading at $61,154 down around 2.15% in the last 24 hours. Ethereum is also down 4.5%, trading at $3009. Similarly, the entire crypto market followed this trend, with the market capitalization dropping by 3.09% over the last 24 hours to $2.24 trillion.