The debut of the first bitcoin futures ETF drew big demand, but retail investors mostly sat out, research firm says

The debut of the first bitcoin futures ETF drew big demand, but retail investors mostly sat out, research firm says

The first bitcoin-futures exchange-traded fund logged near-record high demand on its launch day but participation by retail investors was lackluster, according to Vanda Research. The , which debuted Tuesday, was the second-most heavily traded fund debut ever, landing with more than 24 million shares exchanged, according to Bloomberg data. ProShares reportedly said its new ETF brought in $570 million in assets in its launch day. Retail investors bought $7.68 million in BITO shares on Tuesday, but that's well below the high-profile debut of in April, when they bought seven times more of the crypto exchange's stock, at $57 million, said Vanda Research in a note Wednesday. Its VandaTrack tool monitors retail-investing activity in 9,000 individual stocks and ETFs in the US. "[Most] pundits interpreted the massive trading volumes as a roaring success for BITO. From retail investors' perspective, it wasn't as much of a blockbuster," wrote Vanda analyst Giacomo Pierantoni and senior strategist Ben Onatibia. They said the overall massive demand for BITO, an ETF that contracts rather than the actual digital currency, was likely from a combination of investment advisors, private banking clients, and funds shorting the ETF to gain from the contango. is a market condition where prices