Nine Ethereum-based spot ETFs began trading on the U.S. stock exchange on Tuesday, marking a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency industry after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave the green delicate on Monday.

Ethereum ETFs Hit $1 Billion in Trading Volume on Debut

James Seyffart, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, described Monday’s ETF launch as “a pretty big success,” Fortune reported. report. However, initial enthusiasm was tempered by edged comparisons to the debut of a Bitcoin ETF earlier this year, which brought in $655 million in inflows on its first day of trading.

Digging deeper, Ethereum ETFs have collectively accumulated assets worth $10.2 billion, trading volumes surpassing $1.1 billion on day one. Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust (ETHE) led the volume race with $469.7 million.

Among the major players, BlackRock led the pack with an inflow of $266 million, closely followed by Bitwise with $204 million and Fidelity with $71 million.

Despite these numbers, ETFs collectively recorded net inflows of $107 million, dwarfed by capital outflows of $484 million from Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust, according to Bloomberg data.

However, the market reaction to ETFs has not translated into a noticeable impact on the price of Ethereum, which has seen a marginal decline of 0.8% since trading began.

Currently second largest cryptocurrency in the market is $3,420, with a 27 percent drop in trading volume in that area, amounting to $16 billion in the last 24 hours, with no significant change in the price value per coin on Tuesday.

Bright future despite challenges

Given that Ethereum’s market cap is a fraction of Bitcoin’s, the relatively smaller inflows were somewhat to be expected. In addition, a report by Fortune magazine noted the lack of staking function in ETFs, which is prohibited by the SEC, has also led some investors to buy Ethereum directly, bypassing the recent Ethereum ETF mechanism.

Another major reason for the ETHE fund’s first day outflows is Grayscale’s 2.5% fee, while competitors charge 0.25% or less. This factor is believed to have influenced investor behavior and contributed to the ETHE fund outflows.

Despite the lack of market reaction, Seyffart remains bullish about the reception of Ethereum ETFs, citing sturdy performance from “smaller players” such as 21 Shares’ Core Ethereum ETF, which attracted $8.7 million inflows. Seyffart said to Fortune:

A very successful start day for a standard ETF’s first day of trading. In addition, volume numbers were very sturdy.

The bullish outlook for ETH is reinforced by the fact that on March 14, just two months after the start of trading in approved ETFs, the price of bitcoin (BTC) rose to a record high of $73,700.

While ETFs investing in the price of ETH may not attract as much inflow and trading volume as BTC, it could lead to a sustained escalate in the price of ETH in the long run.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com