Bitcoin has surged into October, with traders strapping in for a market “frenzy” in coming months.
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The bitcoin price has hit a fresh all-time high over $126,000 per bitcoin, giving it a market capitalization of around $2.5 trillion amid fears of a Federal Reserve-fueled U.S. dollar crisis.
Now, as U.S. president Donald Trump floats the idea of a $2,000 Covid stimulus check-style tariff dividend, BlackRock’s market-leading spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is on the verge of crossing $100 billion in assets under management—on track to hit the milestone far faster than any other ETF in history.
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BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink has become one of the most bullish crypto voices on Wall Street, helping the bitcoin price rocket higher since early 2024.
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BlackRock’s IBIT, which launched in January 2024 to huge fanfare, has surged thanks to massive inflows over the last few months and the increase in the value of the bitcoin price itself. The fund now has assets of $98.6 billion and could cross the psychological line in a matter of days.
Bitcoin ETFs could add another $20 billion worth of inflows before the end of the year, according to some market watchers, with the lion’s share of that likely to go to BlackRock’s bitcoin fund.
“Following the recent rally over the first weekend of ‘Uptober’, which saw bitcoin’s price surge to a new all-time high above $125,000, record-level ETF inflows totalled above $3 billion across the first week of the month,” Dom Harz, cofounder of bitcoin decentralized finance (DeFi) platform BOB, said in emailed comments.
BlackRock’s IBIT is on track to hit the $100 billion milestone about five times faster than any other ETF in history, according to a report from Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart, with it also “by far the youngest” of the 20 largest ETFs.
BlackRock’s flagship S&P 500 ETF took 25 years to reach its current revenue levels, while IBIT has achieved higher profitability in less than two years.
The fund, charging a 0.25% fee, is thought to bring in annual revenue of $240 million for BlackRock, becoming the most profitable BlackRock ETF when it surpassed BlackRock’s IWF and EFA funds in July.
“The fact that IBIT is now BlackRock’s most profitable product is extremely impressive,” Seyffart, who added that BlackRock’s bitcoin fund—and rival crypto-tied ETFs—faced a lot of criticism ahead of their launches last year, told Bloomberg.
“We were very bullish on the amount of demand and flows that we thought would come into the bitcoin ETFs, but even these numbers have blown away our most bullish expectations.”
The BlackRock bitcoin fund has become the de facto route for traditional finance to gain bitcoin exposure, with the surging popularity of the “debasement trade” this year catapulting bitcoin higher along with gold.
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The bitcoin price has rocketed higher along with gold this year, with some analysts predicting the bitcoin price has further to climb in the months ahead.
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“While it’s very possible that gold will continue to outperform other assets for the foreseeable future, it has certainly become a crowded trade,” Nic Puckrin, investment analyst and co-founder of The Coin Bureau, said in emailed comments.
“That means there is more risk involved in initiating exposure at this point. After more than a 50% rally in the gold price year-to-date, attention may now turn to other alternatives that express a similar view. These include other metals and commodities, tokenized real assets, and bitcoin, which remain undervalued against gold. These alternative assets can all play a similar role in portfolios—a hedge against future inflation and political intervention, and an alternative to the U.S. dollar and other debasing currencies.”
Crypto ETFs more widely drew record inflows of almost $6 billion globally last week, according to data from CoinShares.
“This level of investment highlights the growing recognition of digital assets as an alternative in times of uncertainty,” James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote in the weekly report.
