Bitcoin ETF inflows pick up again, with BlackRock leading the way
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan says he expects a “secondary acceleration” for spot bitcoin ETF flows in a few months
David Tran Photo/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF saw its largest net inflow day on Tuesday more than a month after launching.
The asset management giant’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) brought in $493 million during the trading day, according to BitMEX Research. That broke the fund’s previous daily net inflow high mark of $386 million posted on Jan. 12, the fund’s second day on the market.
With Tuesday’s inflows, IBIT hit nearly $5.2 billion in assets under management.
Just 7% of all ETFs are as big as the BlackRock fund, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas.
Grayscale Investments’ Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) is the largest spot bitcoin ETF, with $22.8 billion. But that number is down from the roughly $28 billion in assets it had upon converting to an ETF on Jan. 11, as the fund has seen net outflows every day since then.
The other nine US spot bitcoin ETFs have more than offset the more than $6.5 billion of net outflows for GBTC, as the net inflows for all 10 totaled nearly $3.8 billion after Tuesday, the BitMEX Research data shows.
Read more: A month after launch, spot bitcoin ETF weekly net inflows hit new high
The $631 million of net inflows for the segment on Tuesday was second only to the first day of trading, during which the funds brought in $655 million.
Behind IBIT, Fidelity Investments’ Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) is approaching $4 billion in assets under management. Balchunas noted in a Feb. 8 X post that IBIT and FBTC are the fastest-growing newly launched ETFs of all time.
Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of fellow spot bitcoin ETF issuer Bitwise, said during a Tuesday panel discussion at the Exchange ETF conference in Miami Beach that while he foresaw a significant demand for such funds, the net inflows have been larger than expected.
“And I actually think there will be a secondary acceleration in a few months when these get onto national account platforms,” Hougan added.
It will take time before many players in the wealth management sector — such as registered investment advisers and wirehouses — allocate client assets to spot bitcoin ETFs, industry analysts and executives have told Blockworks.
Financial giant Vanguard is not allowing users of its brokerage platform to trade the new US spot bitcoin ETFs.
Read more: ‘Primary market’ for bitcoin ETFs largely hasn’t yet adopted such funds
Steve Kurz, head of global asset management at Galaxy Digital, noted during the same panel discussion Tuesday that there are also “idiosyncratic, fundamental reasons why this year it makes sense to own bitcoin.”
The next bitcoin halving, during which the per-block rewards for mining bitcoins will be slashed from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, is slated for April. Such an event has historically catalyzed crypto bull markets.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) price hovered around $52,000 Wednesday morning — up about 20% in the last week.
“So the story and the fundamentals matching the access…that’s why we’re just getting started and why there are a lot more flows to come,” Kurz said.
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