BlackRock and Fidelity’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have tallied more assets in their first month of trading than any ETF launched in the United States over the last 30 years.
Bloomberg Intelligence data shows BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) have each secured more than $3 billion in assets in the first 17 trading days, the only ones to do so out of a list of over 5,500 ETFs.
IBIT and FBTC are in a “league of [their] own,” said Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas in a Feb. 8 post on X.
Before the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs, BlackRock’s iShares Climate Conscious & Transition MSCI USA ETF, which launched on June 8, 2023, was the leader with the most assets under management in its debut month at $2.2 billion.
Balchunas said BlackRock and Fidelity’s Bitcoin ETF results are even more impressive, as most other ETFs that ranked on the list were “Bring Your Own Assets” type of ETFs — meaning one investor was behind all of the ETF’s assets under management.
BlackRock and Fidelity’s ETFs, on the other hand, have seen inflows every single trading day since launch, which Balchunas described as “Literally unprecedented.”
The ARK 21Shares’s spot Bitcoin ETF and Bitwise Bitcoin Fund also made the top 25, landing 20th and 22nd, respectively. ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF — launched as a futures product in October 2021 — also made the list in seventh place.
Balchunas noted that Bloomberg Intelligence data filtered out ETFs that underwent a conversion, such as Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), as well as about 100 mutual funds that converted to ETFs.
Balchunas acknowledged the mass outflows from Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF have been a factor in the flow performance of the spot Bitcoin ETFs and that some of those ETFs may have had seed funding, but that that’s not enough to “write any of this off.”
“I think the real unseen force here is competition. 10 ETFs launching on same day w/ some stud issuers just made everyone hustle their ass off.”
Meanwhile, IBIT and FBTC’s performance also stands out against some of the largest ETFs by flows in 2024.
According to Bloomberg data, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF sits in fifth place, according to figures from Feb. 5. FBTC isn’t far behind either, sitting in eighth position.
Only three broad index funds tracking the S&P 500 and Vanguard’s Total Stock Market ETF have surpassed IBIT.
Source : Cointelegraph by Brayden Lindrea - BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF domin