As of Tuesday, the Bitcoin spot ETF “IBIT” by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company, has officially surpassed GrayScale’s GBTC, a cryptocurrency asset management company, becoming the world’s largest Bitcoin spot ETF. IBIT currently holds 288,670 BTC, valued at nearly $20 billion.
According to HODL15Capital data, since its listing in January this year, the amount of Bitcoin held by BlackRock’s IBIT ETF has surpassed GrayScale’s GBTC holdings for the first time. Currently, IBIT holds a total of 288,670 BTC, while GBTC has only 287,450 BTC, a difference of more than 1,200 BTC.
Bloomberg data also shows that as of this Tuesday, IBIT holds $19.68 billion worth of Bitcoin, surpassing GBTC, which holds $19.65 billion worth of Bitcoin. The third-largest Bitcoin spot ETF is FBTC issued by Fidelity Investments, which currently holds $11.1 billion worth of Bitcoin.
Since its listing in January this year, BlackRock’s IBIT has attracted $16.5 billion in fund inflows, making it the largest Bitcoin spot ETF in terms of size. Investors have withdrawn $17.7 billion from GrayScale’s GBTC during this period, which is believed to be a possible driving factor for capital outflow due to GBTC’s high management fee of 1.5% and profit-taking by arbitrageurs.
HODL15Capital points out that after successfully converting to a Bitcoin spot ETF on January 10, GBTC held over 620,000 BTC, accounting for over 3% of the circulating supply of BTC. However, compared to the 0.2% management fee of its peers, GrayScale refused to lower its management fee, resulting in investors withdrawing over 330,000 BTC to date.
In order to restore the competitiveness of its products, GrayScale submitted an application to the SEC in March, seeking to issue a mini-version of its Bitcoin spot ETF called “Bitcoin Mini Trust” (BTC), which would charge a management fee of 0.15%, lower than all current Bitcoin spot ETFs.
BlackRock’s income and bond funds purchased IBIT in the first quarter. According to documents submitted to the SEC on the 28th, BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities Fund (BSIIX) bought $3.56 million worth of IBIT, and BlackRock Strategic Global Bond Fund (MAWIX) bought $485,000 worth of IBIT.
However, the holdings of IBIT by these two funds only represent a small portion of their portfolios. BSIIX’s portfolio is currently valued at $37.4 billion, while MAWIX’s portfolio is valued at $776.4 million.
Over 400 companies invested in IBIT in Q1
Previously, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas shared data indicating that in the first quarter of this year, a total of 414 institutions invested in BlackRock’s IBIT, which is an incredible achievement.
Currently, Millennium Management, an asset management company, has the largest IBIT holdings, with $844 million worth of IBIT. Schonfeld Strategy Advisors and Aristeia Capital rank second and third, respectively, with holdings of $248 million and $163 million.
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