The products mark a landmark moment for the crypto currency industry that will test whether digital assets can gain wider acceptance as an investment

U.S.-listed bitcoin ETFs saw $4.6 billion worth of shares trade hands as of Thursday afternoon, according to LSEG data, as investors jumped into the landmark products approved by the U.S. securities regulator on Wednesday.

The products mark a landmark moment for the crypto currency industry that will test whether digital assets – still viewed by many professionals as risky – can gain wider acceptance as an investment.

Eleven spot bitcoin ETFs – including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, and ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, among others – began trading Thursday morning, sparking a fierce competition for market share.

Grayscale, BlackRock and Fidelity dominated trading volumes, according to the LSEG data.

Trading volumes have been comparatively strong for new ETF products, said Todd Rosenbluth, strategist at VettaFi. But this is a longer race than just a single day’s trading.

The green light from the U.S. SEC for the products finally came late on Wednesday, after a decade-long tussle with the crypto industry.

Some executives called out bitcoin as a high-risk investment, and Vanguard – the biggest provider of mutual funds – said it had no plans to make the new batch of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds available on its platform to its brokerage clients.

The Securities and Exchange Commission had earlier rejected all spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds on investor protection concerns. SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement on Wednesday that the approvals were not an endorsement of bitcoin, calling it a “speculative, volatile asset.”

The ETF launches raised the price of bitcoin up to its highest level since December 2021. It was last up 0.77% at $46,303, while the price of ether, the second-biggest crypto currency, was 2.79% higher at $2597.95.