The abrupt increase in volume coincides with VanEck’s Wednesday offering fee reduction to 0.20% from 0.25%.
With respect to daily volume, HODL was the third largest, after GBTC on Grayscale and IBIT on BlockRock. One of the top ten spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds in the United States, VanEck’s HODL, had a 2,200% increase in trading volumes on Tuesday, fueled by individual traders.
On Tuesday, HODL saw volume trades of over $400 million, a 22-fold increase over its daily average of $17 million. The numbers were released prior to VanEck’s scheduled fee reduction on Wednesday, which will see a drop in offering costs from 0.25% to 0.20%, per a filing.
After the regular leaders, Grayscale’s GBTC and BlockRock’s IBIT, HODL had the third-largest volumes. As of February 20, the ETF held almost $200 million worth of bitcoin, according to data.
Eric Balchunas, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, stated on X that the volumes were the result of 32,000 small trades rather than a single large investment, indicating a retail frenzy.
“Considering the abrupt and dramatic spike in trade volume (500 trades on Friday, 50,000 trades today), I’m wondering if any Reddit or TikTok influencers suggested them to their audience,” Balchunas remarked. “Smells like a retail army.”. According to reports, the bitcoin ETFs saw their biggest trading day since going live in January, partly due to HODL’s extraordinarily high volumes.