As the battle to be the top Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider in the U.S. rages on, the gap at the top has shrunk to $1.5 billion.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is currently top of the table with $18.7 billion assets under management (AUM), which includes approximately 297,000 Bitcoin. However due to months of outflows from GBTC, the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is putting pressure on the table leaders.
Now with $17.2 billion AUM, BlackRock’s fund is only $1.5 billion away from flipping GBTC. To put this in perspective, the third placed fund on the Bitcoin ETF table is more than $7.5 billion behind.
This comes after Bloomberg senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, predicted that IBIT would flip GBTC by the end of April. It’s looking unlikely that this prediction will be proven correct—but it likely wasn’t far off the mark.
BlackRock's IBIT ETF on Track to Flip GBTC After Bitcoin Halving: Bloomberg Analyst
BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is on track to flip the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) before the end of the month, according to analysts. "GBTC currently hanging on to a $2.3 billion lead," Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on Twitter. "A monster rally in BTC could delay it a bit but I think 4/30 is a solid over/under date." For context, this time last week the gap between the two spot Bitcoin ETFs—the two largest in the U.S.—was approximately $4 billion. BlackRock's...
BlackRock’s IBIT fund has seen four consecutive days of flows slowing down, which seems the most likely culprit for the Bloomberg analysts’ prediction not ringing true. However, prior to this stunted growth the fund had seen 71 straight days of inflows, putting it halfway to setting a new record for ETFs.
Since its first day of trading, IBIT has yet to have a day of outflows—when more money left the fund than was put in. In contrast, Grayscale’s GBTC has only ever seen net outflows since its creation, according to CoinGlass data.
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Is Halfway to Setting a New Record
Financial giant BlackRock has seen its Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) grow for the 70th day in a row. If it can keep that going for another 90 trading days, it will have tied JP Morgan's Equity Premium Income (JEPI) 160-day streak. As it stands, since the fund first started reporting flows on January 12, it has seen more deposits than withdrawals every single trading day. With this news, the BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF breaks into the top 10 for the longest ETF daily inflow streaks since...
On its worst day, March 19, GBTC saw an outflow of $618.2 million. Even if IBIT matched its best inflow of $856.53 million from March 12, the fund would still be $25 million short of flipping the table. Neither fund has seen those kinds of flows in the past two weeks, however. Since mid-April, IBIT’s daily inflows have only topped $30 million once.
Despite this, in the two weeks since Balchunas’ prediction, the gap between IBIT and GBTC has shrunk by nearly half from $2.3 billion to $1.5 billion.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
