It has been just over a year since the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds went live, and their emergence opened the floodgates for traditional investors to pile into the crypto industry like never before.
In January 2024, the first spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading, paving the way for traditional investors, who were previously very cautious about digital assets, to enter the crypto market for the first time.
Sponsored
They’re also credited with driving the astonishing gains in Bitcoin’s value over the last year, sending it beyond the $100,000 barrier for the first time.
More Accessible Than Ever Before
Perhaps the biggest single impact of the first Bitcoin ETFs was making it much easier for traditional investors to gain exposure to the world’s most popular crypto asset.
Before the ETFs, the only way to buy Bitcoin was to create an account at an exchange or purchase it privately from an individual. That also meant creating a crypto wallet and putting up with the hassles of securing it, which is a step too far for cautious investors.
Conversely, ETFs allow investors to buy BTC through a traditional brokerage, just as they would acquire stocks and shares or commodities. By easing access this way, ETFs won over thousands of investors, who poured billions of dollars into these new funds. It wasn’t just institutional investors taking advantage of this; many retail investors showed enthusiasm, too.
The most popular Bitcoin ETF by far is BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, which has amassed a stunning $37 billion net inflow.
As of early March 2025, it controls more than $52 billion in net assets, surpassing the $33 billion held in the 20-year-old iShares gold ETF and not far off of the $75 million held in the world’s largest gold ETF, the SPDR Gold Shares.
The crypto exchange GRVT astutely points out in a recent blog post that the growth of Bitcoin ETFs far outpaced that of the first gold ETFs during their first year of trading. When they launched in 2024, the gold ETFs accumulated just $3.45 billion in capital in the first 12 months,
A Stunning Price Impact
Although it’s always challenging to understand what’s driving Bitcoin’s price action, most analysts agree that the ETFs were one of the major factors powering the token’s incredible gains over the last year. As the ETF operators began bulk-buying Bitcoin to support these new funds, BTC rapidly became more scarce, and its price shot up to record-breaking levels.
On January 10, when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced it had approved the first Bitcoin ETFs, BTC was priced at just $46,000. The price then dipped below $40,000, only to recover and surge to a new record of just over $73,000 by the middle of March.
Other factors, such as the much-vaunted “Bitcoin halving”, have also been credited with the surging price of Bitcoin, as it slowed the pace at which new Bitcoins are minted by the “miners” that power its decentralized network. With fewer new coins entering circulation and the soaring demand created by the ETFs, Bitcoin’s price increased.
Further impetus came after Donald Trump’s November U.S. election victory, with his promise of a friendlier attitude to crypto sending the market into overdrive. Bitcoin rapidly soared to over $100,000 in November, hitting a record of $109,114 on January 20.
More Crypto ETFs On The Way
Bitcoin EFTs were widely seen as a big success, and it was only a matter of time before the SEC was asked to approve additional products for rival cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum.
Late last year, we saw the arrival of the first spot ether ETF, which gives investors similarly easy exposure to ETH. Many more are on the table, such as the first Solana and hybrid BTC/ETH ETFs.
The Trump administration is likely to relax crypto’s regulatory rules even further, and many believe we’ll see many more crypto ETFs emerge in the coming months, such as XRP, Cardano, Hedera, and Litecoin. Trump’s recent announcement that he wants to create a “strategic reserve” that includes several tokens only adds fuel to the fire, increasing demand for such products.
Crypto Goes Mainstream
The incredible success of the first Bitcoin ETFs adds to the growing consensus that crypto is no longer some kind of speculative asset but rather a viable, mainstream investment with just as much potential as some of the hottest tech stocks available on the public markets today.
This potential, along with the fact that ETFs make them far more accessible, is dramatically impacting the crypto industry. Indeed, GRVT argues that thanks to the ETFs, digital assets have far more legitimacy now than ever before, and Bitcoin itself has cemented its status as a form of “digital gold”, becoming an essential buy for a rapidly growing number of investors.
As more investors join, Bitcoin ETFs are likely to grow in value in the years ahead. They could one day rival gold as the ‘de facto’ store of value, helping investors protect their capital during turbulent economic climates.
