Efe Nail Saltık 
Grayscale‘s GBTC, once a dominant force in the bitcoin market, has seen a significant decline in its holdings since the launch of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States on January 11th.
While GBTC’s market share by bitcoin holdings stood at around 100% at the time of the spot ETFs’ debut, it has now plummeted to just 37.3%. This decline in market share corresponds to a halving of GBTC’s bitcoin holdings, which have dropped from approximately 619,220 to around 311,621 as of Monday.
One contributing factor to GBTC’s diminished stature is its comparatively high fee structure, with a 1.5% fee compared to the 0.12% fee of competitors like BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC. Consequently, investors have increasingly favored these lower-cost alternatives, leading to a significant outflow from GBTC.
Despite the substantial decrease in bitcoin holdings, GBTC’s assets under management in U.S. dollar terms have experienced a less pronounced decline, dropping by 31% from $28.7 billion on January 11th to $19.8 billion at current prices. This is partially attributable to the concurrent rise in bitcoin’s price since the launch of spot ETFs.
In contrast, BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC spot ETFs have seen a rise in market share by bitcoin holdings, capturing 32.2% and 17.8% respectively. Collectively, the assets held by all U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs now amount to nearly 840,000 BTC, representing over 4% of the total 21 million bitcoin supply.
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