Key Points
- BlackRock’s IBIT spot bitcoin ETF has reached $10 billion in assets under management in just seven weeks.
- Grayscale’s GBTC fund has seen a 30% decrease in assets since the introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs.
BlackRock’s IBIT spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has achieved a significant milestone. Within a span of seven weeks, it has accumulated $10 billion in assets under management (AUM). The fund secured its second-largest daily inflows since its inception on January 11.
In terms of Bitcoin, the IBIT fund now manages over 162,000 BTC, equivalent to $10 billion. This surpasses Fidelity’s FBTC, which manages over 105,000 BTC, or $6.3 billion in assets.
Comparative Performance of ETFs
According to Nate Geraci, President of The ETF Store, only about 150 out of 3,400 ETFs have more than $10 billion in AUM. Most of these were launched over a decade ago. Meanwhile, Ark Invest 21 Shares’ ARKB occupies the third position with over 34,000 BTC ($2.1 billion) under management. The newborn nine spot bitcoin ETFs, excluding Grayscale’s converted GBTC fund, now exceed 344,000 BTC in assets ($21 billion).
Contrastingly, Grayscale’s higher fee GBTC fund has experienced a 30% drop to just over 432,000 BTC ($27 billion) from around 619,000 BTC ($38 billion) since the spot bitcoin ETFs began trading.
Inflows and Outflows
IBIT recorded inflows of $603.9 million recently, just short of the $612.1 million record inflows it generated previously. However, these inflows were largely offset by $598.9 million in outflows from Grayscale’s converted fund. Fidelity’s FBTC saw $44.8 million worth of inflows and Bitwise’s BITB $21.7 million.
There has also been a surge in outflows from Europe’s largest bitcoin exchange-traded products recently. Analysts suggest this could be due to a switch to U.S. ETFs or some profit-taking. Since January 11, 2024, there has been an outflow of $344m from the big 6 European bitcoin ETPs, $50m of which occurred on February 29, 2024.
Net inflows for all the U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs combined were $92.4 million recently, a significant drop from the record $673.4 million in net inflows previously. Bitcoin investment vehicles absorbed 119,604 BTC ($7.4 billion) globally in February, according to Vetle Lunde, a K33 Research analyst.
Trading Volume
The U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs also recorded the second-largest trading volume of $4.74 billion recently, following a record volume of $7.64 billion as bitcoin’s price reached a high of $64,000. The trading volume was led by BlackRock’s IBIT, registering $1.9 billion, with Grayscale’s GBTC and Fidelity’s FBTC generating $1.37 billion and $1.01 billion, respectively.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $62,103, down 0.6% over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin saw a nearly 45% increase in February, marking the largest monthly percentage gain since December 2020.
