BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust pauses inflows, sparking mixed reactions among crypto observers. Despite concerns, the fund’s holdings have remained stable at 274,462 BTC since April 24.
Some people worry that a popular crypto fund, IBIT, has stopped receiving new investments. But others think this isn’t so strange, especially compared to how long it went without new money coming in before.
People who follow Bitcoin are getting more worried about another big investment company, BlackRock, because its Bitcoin fund has stopped getting new money put into it for a few days in a row. This is the first time this has happened since the fund started.
BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund, IBIT, has been growing really fast in the US, but since April 24, it hasn’t had any new money put into it.
IBIT’s official website shows that the fund has kept the same amount of Bitcoin, about 274,462 BTC, for the last four days of trading.
On April 24, BlackRock’s IBIT stopped a streak of 71 days where it was getting new money every day. This made some people worry because the fund used to always get new investments regularly. Since it started trading on January 11 with just 2,621 BTC, IBIT has grown its Bitcoin holdings by a huge 10,378%.
Some crypto observers worry that IBIT not receiving new money could signal trouble for investors. But others say that the real surprise was how long IBIT kept getting new investments, not the past few days where it didn’t get any.
“For new bitcoins to come in or go out of an ETF, there needs to be a big enough mismatch between supply and demand, such that the market makers need to organize the creation or destruction of creation units,” On April 30th, Thomas Fahrer, a co-founder of Apollo, authored a piece on X. He added:
“This isn’t unique to the Bitcoin ETFs, this is how ETFs work in general. Most ETFs, on most days, will record zero inflows. Blackrock’s trend of positive flows has been an exception to this rule.”
BlackRock’s Bitcoin Fund Stagnates Amid Grayscale Withdrawals
While BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund didn’t get any new money recently, other big funds, like the one from Grayscale Investments, also saw people taking money out.
On April 20th, HODL Capital’s data revealed that investors withdrew a total of 823 Bitcoins from 10 different Bitcoin funds in the US.
On April 20th, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) held 297,117 Bitcoins, representing a 52% decrease from its January 11th inception.
Comparing BlackRock’s 274,462 Bitcoins to Grayscale’s 297,117 Bitcoins, Grayscale only has about 8% more.
Despite declining new investments in Bitcoin funds in the US, the total amount of Bitcoin held has increased since their inception. As of April 29th, all the Bitcoin funds together had 831,424 Bitcoins, which is about 33.1% more than they had on January 11th.
