BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF Is Already Its Most Profitable, Surpassing Older ETFs

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) has become the asset management giant’s most profitable exchange-traded fund, just 21 months after launch, surpassing products that have been generating revenue for more than two decades.

IBIT is sitting “a hair away from $100 billion” in assets under management, and now generates approximately $244.5 million in annual revenue for BlackRock, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas tweeted Monday.

“Check out the ages of the rest of the Top 10. Absurd,” Balchunas wrote, pointing to how the Bitcoin ETF has leapfrogged established funds, including the 25-year-old iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF and the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF.

“IBIT being the most profitable product for the largest issuer of ETFs in the world, clearly shows the size of the demand from institutions and retail, and this milestone should eliminate any doubt on risk appetite for Bitcoin,” Pratik Kala, head of research at Apollo Crypto, told Decrypt.

As of Monday, IBIT held $98.47 billion in assets across 1.38 billion shares with a 0.25% fee, on track to hit $100 billion in just 435 days, far faster than Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF, which took 2,011 days.

Jagdish Pandya, founder of Blockon Ventures, told Decrypt that comparing Bitcoin ETFs with traditional ETFs is “an injustice to old asset classes.”

He attributed the disparity to Bitcoin’s structural advantages, noting that traditional assets have “higher supply, no scarcity, low returns, no financial disruption” and therefore “have no chance to outperform Bitcoin ETFs.”

Pandya argued that that were Bitcoin’s price to eventually top $1 million, “all ETF comparisons will stop,” adding that Bitcoin ETFs would “emerge as a clear leader, more profitable than decades-old funds.”

Bitcoin is currently trading at around $124,500, trading flat on the day after hitting a new all-time high above $126,000 earlier in the week, per CoinGecko data.

Last week, IBIT recorded $1.8 billion of the $3.2 billion in total inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in its second-largest week on record, according to Farside Investors data.

The performance came as investment products tied to crypto saw huge inflows of $5.95 billion globally last week, according to a CoinShares report.

Addressing concerns about potential market downturns, Ruchir Gupta, co-founder of Gyld Finance, told Decrypt that while Bitcoin’s correlation with risk markets could drive outflows during equity downturns, “the ETFs have opened up Bitcoin to a much larger investor base, a part of which is longer-term sticky holders.”

The net effect is “IBIT’s success and AUM reduces volatility in a correction,” he said.

Gupta expects international ETFs to “act like larger distribution arms and extend the reach of BTC as an asset, and net add to Bitcoin rather than necessarily drain liquidity from IBIT.”

The development comes as BlackRock seeks approval to tokenize ETFs and other real-world assets after launching BUIDL in 2024, a fund offering tokenized U.S. Treasury exposure.