BlackRock’s new iShares spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) has surged past $2 billion in assets under management (AUM).
The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) now holds 49,952.3257 BTC, according to the ETF’s product page.
With BTC trading at $41,867 at time of writing, the ETF’s total Bitcoin holdings are now worth more than $2.08 billion.
On January 10th, the SEC approved all 11 spot BTC ETFs that were under consideration after applicants worked with the regulator for months to refine their proposals.
The regulator approved the launch of the country’s first Bitcoin futures ETFs in October 2021 but had denied all previous spot Bitcoin ETF applications until the set of approvals earlier this month.
Exchange-traded funds track the performance of a particular asset or group of assets and are traded on the stock market. All of the approved spot Bitcoin ETFs require the issuers to directly hold BTC.
Besides Grayscale (GBTC), which converted the existing shares of its Bitcoin trust into an ETF, BlackRock’s IBIT is the first of the newly approved BTC exchange-traded funds to cross the $2 billion AUM mark.
Nate Geraci, the president of the investment advising firm The ETF Store, notes that in terms of current assets, the iShares exchange-traded fund is now in the top three ETFs out of the 600+ that have launched since the beginning of 2023.
He also thinks that IBIT will take the number one spot on the list by next week.
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