Since its first day of trading, the IBIT spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) of Blackrock has led the charge together with Fidelity’s FBTC. As of Wednesday’s trading day, both have made up 70% of the flows in their asset class.
Blackrock Continues Its Bitcoin Accumulation
In an update, Blackrock has already accumulated 44,005 BTC in its coffers to back up its spot Bitcoin ETF. At the present rate of $40K per BTC, this equates to $1.76 billion.
The appeal of the giant asset management firm’s spot Bitcoin ETF can be attributed to its low fees. For the first six months or the initial $5 billion asset under management (AUM), IBIT only charges 0.12%. Beyond any of those conditions will bring up the fees to 0.25%.
It should be noted that Blackrock originally had the numbers at 0.20% during the discounted period and 0.30% thereafter. But then again, a master stroke revision by the company hours before the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) mass approval of all spot Bitcoin ETF filings brought the rates down to what they are now.
The expense ratio of IBIT matches that of the FBTC. The latter had the charges totally waived for the first six months of their trading, though, to spice up the competition.
How is Bitcoin Holding Up?
As of this writing at 5:00 PM UTC, Bitcoin is fighting to keep its footing around the $40K line and it is displaying nearly 2% gain on the 24-hour chart. During this period, the trading volume of the digital asset declined by more than 27% as $24.07 billion worth of BTC moved between wallet addresses and crypto exchanges. The same timeframe saw the crypto’s price hover between a low of $39,105 and a peak of $40,483.
With a rounded-off circulating supply of 19.61 million BTC, the market cap of the coin currently sits at $785.84 billion. So far, Bitcoin has lost approximately 18% of its value from the one-month high of $49K it exhibited upon the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US market. The numbers are notably 41% down from the all-time high of $68,789 it achieved within the November 2021 crypto rally.
The drop in Bitcoin price was mainly attributed to the “sell the news” event that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the SEC’s go signal for spot Bitcoin ETFs. Rubbing salt into the wound is the massive whale outflows partly influenced by Grayscale’s BTC sell-off in the past few days.
The tides are expected to turn by next month when trading for the halving begins.