VanEck’s HODL Bitcoin ETF mysteriously explodes

The volume ofETF spot Bitcoin from VanEck is gone in a mysteriousup more than 2000% over the course of Tuesday and apparently buoyed by retail investors.

Last night on X, a Bitcoin ETF specialist reported that VanEck’s HODL fund had suddenly attracted a large volume of trades.

$HODL is going wild today with $258 million in volume already, a 14-fold jump from its daily average, and it’s not just one big investor (which would make sense) but rather 32,000 individual trades, or 60 times its average. I don’t know how to explain it… maybe it was listed on a platform over the weekend,” wrote Eric Balchunas.

Apparently driven by retail investors, VanEck’s spot ETF finally recorded total volume of around $400 million on Tuesday, an increase of over 2000% compared to its average daily volume since launch. With such volume, the fund is closing in on industry leaders such as BlackRock’s IBIT and Grayscale’s GBTC.

Balchunas later suggested that a Reddit or TikTok influencer may have recommended that his subscribers invest in HODL.

Still haven’t figured out what happened. No one knows. Given how sudden and explosive the increase in number of trades was (500 trades Friday, 50,000 trades today) I’m wondering if some Reddit or TikTok influencer type recommended them to their followers. Feels retail army-ish. https://t.co/WazxSSgFjR

– Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 20, 2024

It feels like an army of retail investors,” he added, noting that this could also be the result of market makers trading with each other.

Spot ETFs on the market’s leading crypto have since their SEC approval in January attracted more than $10 billion in inflows.

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