- Bitcoin topped $126,000 on Monday.
- Exchange-traded funds are leading the buying.
- BlackRock’s IBIT has nearly $100 billion in assets under management.
There’s no stopping Bitcoin’s price — or BlackRock.
On Monday, the top crypto hit a fresh price record of $126,080 just as BlackRock’s IBIT exchange-traded fund became the asset manager’s most profitable ETF.
It’s an extraordinary feat for a fund that’s barely two years old.
“IBIT, a hair away from $100 billion, is now the most profitable ETF for BlackRock by a good amount,” noted Bloomberg Intelligence ETF expert Eric Balchunas on X. “Check out the ages of the rest of the Top 10. Absurd.”
The speed is unprecedented. While BlackRock’s S&P 500 ETF took 25 years to reach its current revenue levels, IBIT achieved higher profitability in under 24 months.
Market watchers also expect Bitcoin ETFs to add in $20 billion in inflows before 2026.
At the moment, investors are piling into Bitcoin for two main reasons. US interest rates are dropping — and are expected to continue to fall — while the dollar is weakening amidst the government shutdown.
That combination is pushing investors to hunt for alternatives, like Bitcoin, where they can park their capital.
The confluence is fuelling predictions that Bitcoin will topple $135,000 any time now. And that’s just one part of the journey.
Arthur Hayes, CIO at Maelstrom, reckons $250,000 per coin is on the table, while researchers at Bernstein, Bitwise, and UK-based Standard Chartered forecast $200,000 per Bitcoin before the end of the year.
$100 billion
At $97.8 billion in assets, IBIT needs just another 2% growth to crack $100 billion — a psychological barrier that would cement the BlackRock fund’s status as one of the world’s largest ETFs regardless of asset class.
And Bitcoin’s surge to $126,000 is accelerating that timeline. Every 1% rise in Bitcoin’s price adds nearly $1 billion to IBIT’s assets under management.
With current trends, and prospects of Bitcoin topping $135,000 any day now, the $100 billion mark could be much closer than traders think.
Of the 11 Bitcoin ETF providers, Larry Fink’s BlackRock remains the most dominant. It holds nearly 30% of the 1.3 million Bitcoin held collectively, according to Dune Analytics.
The age gap
What’s more, the contrast with BlackRock’s other top earners is stark.
Every other fund in the firm’s top 10 revenue generators has been trading for at least 12 years. Most, in fact, are over 20 years old.
But here’s IBIT, an infant born on January 11, 2024. In less than two years, it’s overtaken funds that have been accumulating assets since the dot-com era. And there seems to be no end in sight for its appetite.
Pedro Solimano is DL News’ Buenos Aires-based markets correspondent. Got at a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.