DRAM Crosses $5B, One Day Shy of IBIT's Record

The Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) crossed $5 billion in assets under management on Thursday, just over a month after its April 2 launch. 

It took the fund 25 trading days to hit the milestone, one day longer than the 24 days the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) needed when it launched in January 2024. 

It's not quite apples to apples, though. IBIT launched alongside 11 other spot bitcoin ETFs on Jan. 11, 2024, splitting up the demand. DRAM has had no such competition. It's been the only memory-themed ETF on the market since launch, though rivals are slated to come to market soon.

DRAM pulled in $1.1 billion in inflows on Thursday alone, its biggest single-day haul. The fund is up about 88% since launching, and it was trading up 12% midday Friday, which likely puts the AUM number closer to $6 billion by the close.

The fund came to market after memory stocks had already had a strong run on the back of the AI buildout, but the move has accelerated in the past month.

South Korea's SK Hynix and Samsung, along with U.S.-based Micron Technology, together make up roughly three-quarters of the portfolio. They're the dominant suppliers of high-bandwidth memory, the type used in AI accelerators, and demand has overwhelmed supply. 

Smaller positions in the fund focused on other memory and storage segments have rallied alongside those names.

Memory has historically been a cyclical business, which is part of why some of these stocks still trade at modest multiples relative to current earnings. Bulls argue that AI has structurally changed the demand picture and broken the cyclicality of the business. 

Bears counter that the industry is already racing to add capacity, and every prior memory cycle has ended the same way, with oversupply, falling prices, and the stocks giving back most of the gains.

Time will tell who is right, but for now, the $5 billion sitting in DRAM says investors are siding with the bulls