Bitcoin Wavers Around $63K, Awaiting Hong Kong Spot Crypto ETF Debut

Crypto markets were lower across the board, with bitcoin (BTC) wavering near $63,000 as the upcoming Hong Kong crypto spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) debut has failed to spark excitement among investors.

BTC drifted lower during the day from $64,000 over the weekend, slipping briefly to $61,800 before recovering to just near $63,000 at U.S. afternoon hours. The largest crypto by market value was recently changing hands at $63,000 down about 1% in the past 24 hours, holding up better than the broad-market CoinDesk Market Index (CD20), which lost 3% over the same period.

Most altcoin majors also gave up their weekend gains, with ether (ETH), solana (SOL), dogecoin (DOGE) declining 4%-6%.

Crypto markets have been drifting sideways for the last few weeks in lack of a strong investment narrative to drive prices, cooling from last month’s record-breaking BTC price action and altcoin and memecoin frenzy. CoinDesk’s Bitcoin and Ether Trend Indicators both remain in neutral reading, indicating a market without a clear direction.

Even though spot-based bitcoin and ether ETFs in Hong Kong will start trading on Tuesday morning local time, the incoming debut didn’t spark a similar level of anticipation ahead of the event as to the fever pitch that preceded the U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs. Notably, BTC nearly doubled in price during three months leading up to the January 11 debut, and significant inflows helped propel BTC over $73,000 in March.

Read more: Hong Kong’s Incoming Spot Bitcoin ETFs Could Be ‘Big Deal.’ Here’s What Analysts Say

Defying the muted anticipation, an executive of ChinaAMC – one of the three issuers of the new Hong Kong-listed spot ETFs – reportedly said during a press briefing that the first-day issuance of shares may surpass the U.S. debut’s $125 million, referring to the new products’ seed funding.

“I am very confident that the initial listing scale of Hong Kong’s virtual asset spot ETF can exceed the issuance scale on the first day of the United States,” said Zhu Haokang, head of digital asset management and family wealth.

Wayne Huang, head of ETF and custody at crypto exchange OSL, said that the exchange had completed the first day of raising funds for two of the new offerings, and confirmed Haokang’s forecast.

“Judging from the numbers, the transactions are indeed far greater than the capital inflow of the U.S. bitcoin spot ETF on its first day of trading,” Huang said.

Haokang also said that the ETFs will be beneficial for crypto prices as the offerings feed more liquidity to digital asset markets, broaden funding channels and participation.