BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF First to Reach $2B in AUM
The fund now holds nearly 50,000 bitcoin after adding almost another 4,300 tokens on Thursday.
Jan 26, 2024 at 5:43 p.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/ALWD5SKMINH37KIJLFM4XE3HUU.jpeg)
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The BlackRock iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) on Friday became the first of the recently launched spot bitcoin products to reach $2 billion in assets under management (AUM). This doesn't include Grayscale's GBTC, which had nearly $30 billion in AUM at the time of its conversion from a closed-end fund to a spot ETF.
Investors added about $170 million to IBIT on Thursday, with the fund purchasing nearly another 4,300 bitcoin (BTC), pushing total tokens held to 49,952. With the price of bitcoin rising well above the $40,000 level early Friday, that brought AUM to above $2 billion.
Now with over $2 billion in AUM, the fund ranks third in asset gathering among all of the more than 600 ETFs that launched in the past year, noted ETF Store president Nate Geraci, who believes IBIT could soon take over the crown as number one.
The next fund to cross the $2 billion mark is likely to be Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), which held just shy of 44,000 bitcoin as of Jan. 25.
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Helene is a New York-based reporter covering Wall Street, the rise of the spot bitcoin ETFs and crypto exchanges. She is also the co-host of CoinDesk's Markets Daily show. Helene is a graduate of New York University's business and economic reporting program and has appeared on CBS News, YahooFinance and Nasdaq TradeTalks. She holds BTC and ETH.