HODL To the Moon, VanEck Bitcoin ETF Explodes in Volume

The crypto industry is no stranger to weirdness and mysteries. The market is full of strange phenomena, where a token that claims to be “revolutionising the industry” suddenly disappears into the night. But even the most battle-hardened Bigfoot believers are having a tough time explaining the strange events that hit the crypto ETF markets yesterday, as trading volumes went absolutely haywire. So what’s actually going on, and is there a rational explanation – or is it yet another enigma we must chalk up to the supernatural?

HODL Sees Whopping 14X Increase in Trading

The aptly named HODL is VanEck’s entry in the Bitcoin ETF raffle, officially titled the VanEck Bitcoin Trust. The fund hasn’t been the most popular since it started trading on the 11th of January, falling behind the two biggest institutions (BlackRock and Fidelity) which were previously dominating trading inflows.

However, all of this changed last night, when for no apparent reason, the amount of money flowing in and out of HODL increased by 1,400%. Even more impressively, the surge wasn’t on the back of one individual whale entering/leaving their position. Rather, the sky-rocketing volume came on the back of 32,000 individual trades, which is 60x more than its daily average.

Some have speculated that Bitcoin’s slight correction since hitting USD $50K (AUD $78K) scared off institutional investors, who then sold their holdings in HODL (ironic, right?). However, as Eric Balchunas points out, this doesn’t make sense for several reasons.

But even Balchunas, who is a senior analyst at Bloomberg and the leading expert on crypto ETFs, was completely stumped when trying to figure out why HODL became such hot property yesterday.

While it’s possible one of the theories he floated ends up being true, I’d rather believe it was simply another case of the unexplainable…