BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Gains $500M as Wall Street Appetite for BTC Grows

By Mat Di Salvo

The years of pent-up demand for Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is still feeding furious activity around the top cryptocurrency, the new investment vehicle logging their strongest days yet.

BlackRock, the world’s biggest fund manager, is leading the charge. Yesterday alone, the fund manager’s iShares Bitcoin Trust received a $493 million inflow—and now has $5.1 billion in assets under management. 

Meanwhile, Grayscale’s GBTC is sitting on the most cash, with over $22.9 billion. The fund previously operated like a closed-end fund and was holding huge amounts of crypto. But in January, it turned into an ETF—giving users more flexibility with redeeming shares. 

Yesterday, a total of $631 million flowed into the ten investment vehicles, BitMex Research shows.

The flow of cash into the crypto funds has caused the price of BTC to rally—it’s now sitting comfortably over the $50,000 mark that it touched for the first time in two years Monday. CoinGecko shows that BTC is right now trading for $51,622 per coin. 

After a decade of saying no to the products, the Securities and Exchange Commission finally approved 10 spot BTC ETFs on January 10.

Meanwhile, investors appear to be losing interest in gold—at least among ETF adherents. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said on Twitter that investors were pulling money out of gold ETFs. 

Such vehicles give more seasoned and traditional investors exposure to crypto: the funds hold the digital coins, while people can buy shares that track the BTC’s underlying price and not have to worry about where to keep it.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

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