ProShares $17 Billion ETF Launch Sets the Stage for the GENIUS Act Era

The ProShares GENIUS Money Market ETF (IQMM) shattered all records by logging $17 billion in first-day trading volume. The ETF invests in very short-term US government debt, making it extremely low risk and similar to holding cash.

This ETF is designed so institutions, including stablecoin issuers, can use it as a safe place to store money while earning a small yield. However, market structure experts warn the staggering sum reflects a massive, behind-the-scenes corporate treasury migration rather than a sudden wave of retail investor mania.

IQMM’s Historic Launch Redraws How Stablecoin Issuers Hold Dollar Reserves

Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas noted that BlackRock’s highly successful Bitcoin fund, IBIT, only pulled then the unprecedented $1 billion in day-one volume. IBIT is the largest Bitcoin fund with over $50 billion in assets.

However, Balchunas stated that IQMM’s launch is “multitudes beyond the all-time record for an ETF.”

“I was wrong about this ETF, I just figured it would be niche at best as people would use $BIL or $SHV as money market substitutes,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

According to him, the fund appears to be a textbook example of a “bring your own assets” strategy, in which an institutional client pre-arranges the transfer of existing off-balance-sheet capital into a newly regulated wrapper.

Initially, industry experts assumed ProShares had secured a lucrative deal with a major stablecoin issuer, such as Boston-based Circle.

“Would assume ProShares cut a deal with one of the major US-based stablecoin issuers. Looking at assets, believe that would only leave Circle,” Nate Geraci, president of NovaDius Wealth Management, claimed.

This is because IQMM is not a standard cash-equivalent fund as it is a purpose-built regulatory compliance vehicle. It was designed specifically to meet the strict legal reserve requirements established by the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

Signed into law last year, the legislation mandates that domestic stablecoin issuers maintain one-to-one backing with highly liquid assets. It also strictly caps eligible US Treasury maturities at 93 days to prevent forced selling during periods of market stress.

However, Balchunas later clarified the true, decidedly less glamorous source of the record-breaking inflow.

“The call is coming from inside the house, literally, ProShares own funds are all now using IQMM now for their cash positions. Big time BYOA and not as exciting but arguably smart vs paying another fund co,” he added.

Still, crypto research firm 10X Research said the IQMM’s record launch proves that stablecoin reserves could rapidly migrate into transparent structures.

According to the firm, ProShares’ IQMM represents an unprecedented bridge between traditional financial markets and the digital asset economy.

The fund allows stablecoin issuers to park their dollar reserves in a highly liquid, transparent, and heavily regulated ETF wrapper, rather than shouldering the operational burden of managing complex, private portfolios.

“This is massive because it institutionalizes stablecoin backing, reduces opacity risk, and could channel hundreds of billions of dollars in digital dollar reserves directly into Treasury markets under the GENIUS framework,” the firm added.

By institutionalizing stablecoin backing, the traditional US financial system has effectively pulled crypto’s monetary base onshore.