Fidelity and BlackRock: The Bitcoin ETF Rivalry You Weren’t Ready For 🤔🚀

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Picture it—a sepia-tinted carnival of Wall Street, where every ticker flutters and droops like butterfly wings on a candle flame. US spot Bitcoin ETFs, darling readers, have whirled through epileptic fits glossy enough to make even Nabokov’s butterflies blush. Week after week, the fever charted inversions of fortune—a swoop here from tariff ado, dull as a rain-spattered Tuesday; and then, the ecstasy! Inflows, billions, all those staid men in vests suddenly more giddy than Winnebago tourists at Versailles. Of course, such rapture, like a bubble in champagne or the youth of a summer moth, cannot last forever—now, as the market rhythms purr and slow, it all simmers into a rather more demure waltz.

Specifically, on those two forgettable days of May 7 and 8, Bitcoin ETFs (performing an obedient minuet) shyly pocketed a combined $260 million. This, the high priests of Farside Investors assure us, shows “momentum”—the perennial mirage. And why not? Bitcoin, fickle monarch, somersaulted past the $100,000 mark, inspiring institutional purse-holders to fan themselves dramatically with billiard scoreboards. All very modern, all very Gatsby, minus the questionable jazz.

Fidelity’s Sneaky Pirouette Past BlackRock

Is there intrigue? Of course—torrid inflow numbers have faded like last season’s fashions, with this week sulking in the corridors at $400–$600 million (at best, mind you). Here arrives the true ballet: BlackRock, high and mighty, seemed for a moment to trample the ETF ballroom with daily inflows reaching a smug $971 million on April 28. This week, the luster’s gone rather limp—sagging to a mere $30-70 million each day. Gossip-mongers (they prefer “experts”) mutter about “allocation strategies” and hint BlackRock’s appetite may be suffering from a cholesterol problem.

And Fidelity—delicious Fidelity—prepares its knives. Their Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (that’s FBTC, for those collecting acronyms) has sashayed in with a not-quite-humble $75+ million bouquet in just two days. After last week’s awkward dance with negative net inflows, this is something resembling a pirouette—at least enough to generate shivers in BlackRock’s boardroom. Fidelity, like a well-groomed usurper, whispers: “My turn.”

The Bullish Moon Rises

While all this pecuniary ballet unfolds, there’s an unmistakable Moonrise Kingdom for Bitcoin prices themselves. With cosmic luck (and, apparently, “macroeconomic factors”), BTC ascends! Trade tension—now as mild as chamomile tea. Three US states in a legislative whirl approve Bitcoin reserve laws with all the drama of speed chess. Even inflation, that ancient ghoul, seems to have misplaced its fangs. Throw in a Standard Chartered note of $5.3 billion in ETF inflows across three weeks—and suddenly, everyone’s Aunt Lucy is asking about crypto. Arthur Hayes, crypto’s soothsayer-in-chief, prophesies Bitcoin shooting to $150,000 by the month’s end. If this isn’t hubris, it’s at least bravado—let’s hope the butterflies survive the ride.

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2025-05-09 15:19