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Spot bitcoin ETFs
A spot bitcoin ETF, or exchange-traded fund, holds real bitcoin and trades like a stock.
- You buy shares through a normal brokerage account.
- The fund keeps real bitcoin with a custodian, a company that stores it for the fund.
- You get price exposure, but you never hold the keys.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first US spot bitcoin ETFs on January 10, 2024, and they began trading the next day. They let people buy bitcoin exposure in retirement and brokerage accounts.
Each fund charges a yearly fee. The money moving into or out of these funds each day, called flows, is one of the numbers in our ticker and daily news.
The trade-off: you cannot send ETF shares to a friend or pay with them. They are a claim, not bitcoin itself. See self-custody for the other path.
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What does "spot" mean?
The fund holds the actual asset at today's price. Earlier US bitcoin ETFs held futures contracts, which are bets on a future price. Canada approved spot bitcoin ETFs first, in 2021.
Where do the daily flow numbers come from?
Funds report their holdings each day. Trackers such as Farside add them up, and we report the totals in our news.