Investors purchased a whopping 4,869 BTC worth $329 million through BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) on Oct. 21. The move came as crypto markets retreated and competing spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the United States saw outflows.
All other funds aside from Fidelity’s saw zero or negative flows, resulting in the total net inflow for all funds at $294.3 million.
BlackRock’s IBIT on a Roll
The big BlackRock inflow marks the sixth consecutive trading day of inflows, which have totaled a whopping $1.47 billion over the past week. IBIT has now seen a total inflow of more than $23 billion since its launch in January.
ETF Store President Nate Geraci said the last week’s worth of inflows alone would make it a top-five launch of 2024 out of 570 ETFs.
On Oct. 21, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas commented on the bumper week for the fund, its best since March, adding that its assets under management (AUM) are in the top 2% of all ETFs.
Moreover, IBIT has taken the third spot for inflows year-to-date among all trading ETFs, surpassing the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI).
Fidelity’s Bitcoin ETF (FBTC) had a minor inflow of $5.9 million, its seventh consecutive trading day of positive numbers. However, ETFs from Bitwise, Ark 21Shares, VanEck, and Grayscale all saw outflows as markets retraced.
Spot Ethereum ETFs didn’t have such a rosy day, with a net outflow of $20.8 million on Oct. 21, according to preliminary data from Farside Investors. Grayscale’s ETHE fund hemorrhaged another $29.6 million, which negated inflows for BlackRock (ETHA) and VanEck (ETHV).
The continuing exodus from Grayscale, over $3 billion so far, has dragged the entire batch of Ethereum funds down, and this is likely to continue until investors have exited the high-fee ETHE fund and redistributed to others.
Crypto Market Pulls Back
BlackRock’s bumper inflow day comes as markets retreat and Bitcoin tanked 3.3% from its multi-month high of $69,300, falling back to below $67,000.
The pullback was expected as leverage and BTC futures open interest hit record highs. BTC has since recovered to trade at $67,500 at the time of writing.
Altcoins were hit harder as usual, with larger losses for Ethereum, Near Protocol, Sui, and Litecoin as total capitalization dipped to $2.44 trillion.
