Blackrock’s spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) also known as iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), has become the world’s largest Bitcoin ETF overtaking Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).
Both financial institutions got their approval to launch Bitcoin ETFs the same day after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in early January.
Bitcoin Magazine reported that as of yesterday Blackrock’s IBIT held over $20 billion in assets with 288,670 Bitcoin in its trust. This beats Grayscale’s GBTC which holds over $19.7 billion in assets and 287,450 bitcoin holdings.
The turn of events comes months after both financial institutions launched their ETFs on the same day in January during the period when freshly approved spot Bitcoin ETFs were hitting the market.
Blackrock’s IBIT witnessed a steady inflow of funds leveraging on the financial status of its parent company as one of the largest financial institutions and asset managers in the world.
The same cannot be said for Grayscale’s GBTC which bled funds.
More insights
- Besides the above fact, Grayscale’s GBTC has also witnessed a steady outflow of funds with a significant part of these funds ending up at Blackrock’s IBIT.
- Investors have moved away from GBTC to patronize other Bitcoin ETFs out there due to its high fees. Yesterday alone GBTC witnessed an outflow of $105 million while Blackrock’s IBIT gained over $100 million.
- The fast-growing IBIT by Blackrock also left Fidelity’s $11 billion Bitcoin ETF in the dust cementing IBIT as the fastest-growing spot Bitcoin ETF in the market.
- Blackrock has moved to update the status of its Bitcoin investment by adding it to its Strategic Income and Strategic Global Bond funds further reflecting the high demand for crypto assets by traditional financial institutions.
- As Bitcoin adoption continues to grow in the finance world, traditional financial institutions like asset managers, Big Banks, and hedge fund managers are getting in on the Bitcoin action to meet institutional demand.
The US SEC approval for spot Bitcoin ETFs and now Ethereum ETF has paved the way for these traditional financial institutions to get involved in cryptocurrency and provide their clients with an opportunity to invest in digital assets.
What you need to know
- An exchange-traded fund in crypto is a financial product that allows investors to gain exposure to the price performance of cryptocurrencies without directly owning the digital currency. Crypto ETFs trade on stock exchanges and can be held in brokerage accounts. They can track the performance of one or more cryptocurrencies or related technologies.
- As of January 2024, the SEC approved 11 spots for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and they are ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, Blackrock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust), Franklin Bitcoin ETF, Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Hashdex Bitcoin ETF, Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, VanEck Bitcoin Trust, Valkyrie Bitcoin Fund and WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund.