As of Tuesday, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company, has officially surpassed Grayscale’s GBTC to become the largest Bitcoin spot ETF in the world. The BlackRock iBIT ETF currently holds 288,670 BTC, worth 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 exceeded Grayscale’s GBTC holdings for the first time. Currently, iBIT holds a total of 288,670 BTC, while GBTC has only 287,450 BTC, with a difference of over 1,200 BTC.
Bloomberg data also shows that as of this Tuesday, iBIT holds $19.68 billion worth of Bitcoin, surpassing GBTC’s $19.65 billion. 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. During this period, investors withdrew $17.7 billion from Grayscale’s GBTC, which is believed to be a possible driving factor for capital outflow due to GBTC’s high 1.5% management fee and profit-taking by arbitrageurs.
HODL15Capital points out that after successfully converting into a Bitcoin spot ETF on January 10th, GBTC held over 620,000 BTC, accounting for over 3% of the circulating BTC supply. However, compared to the 0.2% management fee of its peers, Grayscale refused to lower its management fee, and investors have withdrawn over 330,000 BTC to date.
To regain competitiveness, 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) with lower management fees. This ETF is expected to charge a 0.15% management fee, 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, the BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities Fund (BSIIX) bought $3.56 million worth of iBIT, while the BlackRock Strategic Global Bond Fund (MAWIX) bought $485,000 worth of iBIT.
However, the holdings of iBIT in these two funds only account for a small portion of their investment portfolios. The BSIIX investment portfolio is currently valued at $37.4 billion, and the MAWIX investment 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 with holdings of $248 million and $163 million, respectively.