The Bitcoin craze continues to heat up, soaring by 50% in the past month. Bitcoin spot ETFs have been crazy about attracting money, and tens of billions of ETFs have been born!
On Monday, Bitcoin rose more than 5% on the day and exceeded US$65,000, setting a new high since November 2021. It is less than US$4,000 from the historical high and has risen by about 50% in the past week.
As Bitcoin prices surged over the past week, spot Bitcoin ETFs received record inflows, with BlackRock's Spot Bitcoin ETF - IBIT reaching a milestone of $10 billion last Friday.
The pace broke the record for SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), which took more than two years to reach $10 billion in assets after launching in 2004. Of the 3,400 ETFs in the United States, only about 150 have assets under management exceeding $10 billion, and the vast majority of them were launched more than 10 years ago.
After IBIT, the spot Bitcoin ETF with the largest assets is Fidelity Wise Origin (FBTC), with approximately US$6.5 billion in assets, followed by the US$2.1 billion ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) and the US$1.5 billion Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB).
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF exceeds 10 billion in seven weeks
It is worth mentioning that it only took seven weeks for IBIT to reach an asset management scale of US$10 billion.
Last Thursday, IBIT reached $604 million in inflows, a day after setting a single-day record of $612 million, marking the fund's second-largest daily net inflow since its launch on January 11. IBIT is currently the third largest ETF in the United States by asset flow, behind Vanguard and BlackRock's S&P 500 ETFs VOO and IVV.
BlackRock’s IBIT fund has reached over 162,000 Bitcoins (worth $10 billion) under management, while Fidelity’s FBTC fund has surpassed 105,000 Bitcoins (worth $6.3 billion).
BlackRock owns a total of 408 iShares brand ETFs with a scale of US$2.7 trillion. About ten years after the Winklevoss twins first applied for a Bitcoin ETF in 2013, BlackRock applied to launch a cryptocurrency ETF in June 2023.
Analysts pointed out that BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF application is a turning point in the decade-long regulatory battle between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and ETF issuers, who are scrambling to sell the first spot Bitcoin ETF. Coin Fund is introduced to the market.
The SEC has allowed funds to participate in Bitcoin futures trading since 2021, but the agency rejected applications for ETFs that trade at the spot price of Bitcoin.
The watershed approval occurred on January 10, when 11 Bitcoin spot ETFs, including BlackRock, Ark Fund, Fidelity, and Invesco, were approved as "milestones."
Vanguard firmly rejects Bitcoin ETF CEO’s surprise announcement last week that he would step down
But there was one name that didn’t appear at the Bitcoin ETF “party”: Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset management company.
It was previously pointed out that because it is inconsistent with its investment philosophy, Vanguard Group stated that it will not create or provide Bitcoin ETFs, nor will it provide related ETFs from other issuers on its trading platform. The decision stems from Vanguard's broader risk-aversion philosophy and desire to protect middle-class investors.
However, Pioneer unexpectedly announced Thursday that CEO Tim Buckley, who has been with the company for 33 years, will step down at the end of the year.
According to reports, this was Buckley’s personal decision, but this does not prevent some people from speculating other reasons. Some analysts pointed out that Buckley was out because he caused Vanguard Fund to miss the “carnival” of Bitcoin spot ETFs.
This raises the question whether Vanguard’s next CEO will reconsider issuing a Bitcoin spot ETF.