BlackRock Inc’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund passed USD1 billion in investor inflows. This makes it the first in the group of nine new ETFs directly holding the cryptocurrency to surpass the milestone since the funds started trading last week.
According to the data compiled by Bloomberg, investors deposited USD 371 million in the fund on Wednesday, pushing IBIT past the milestone.
BlackRock and Fidelity have driven early consolidation in the new asset, with the two firms receiving 68 per cent of all inflows across the nine new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the market, totaling nearly USD 2 billion.
Fidelity Investments is close behind as the company’s FBTC Bitcoin ETF saw USD 358 million in inflows. This was the highest single day tally since the fund launched a week ago.
In total, about USD 880 million have flowed into Fidelity’s fund.
The report further added that a significant portion of inflows are coming from investors leaving Grayscale Investment’s GBTC fund after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the ETFs.
Recently, the US SEC approved the first US-listed ETFs to track bitcoin coming as a watershed for the world’s largest cryptocurrency and the broader crypto industry.
As per the announcement, SEC has approved 11 applications, including from BlackRock, Ark Investments/21Shares, Fidelity, Invesco and VanEck among others.
The move by the SEC opened the door to cryptocurrencies to many new investors who don’t want to take the extra steps involved in buying actual bitcoin.
Management fees at BlackRock and Fidelity are a fraction of GBTC’s cost which has a sector-high management fee of 1.5 per cent .
However, the lowest fees in the group of new Bitcoin ETFs is of Franklin Templeton at 0.19 per cent management fee. Despite its industry-low fee, Franklin has received less than 2 per cent of inflows across the broader Bitcoin ETF group.