BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF has recently passed a huge milestone. Now the IBIT holds approximately 2.38% of the total BTC in the world, 500,380 BTC as per the books. The current market value of the fund is estimated to be around $48 billion. With this milestone, BlackRock has become one of the key players in the crypto space. In this article, we will delve deeper into the IBIT, and how this new milestone is going to have an impact on the crypto market.

IBIT Overview

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust or IBIT is a spot ETF that enables users to gain exposure to Bitcoin trading without actually needing to own it directly. It was launched on the 11th of January 2024. As BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, soon after the IBIT launched, it quickly amassed a lot of support from the people as well as various institutions who were looking to get their hands on some BTC without actually needing to go through the hassle of owning and managing it. 

As per the latest reports, the IBIT is estimated to hold about 500,380 Bitcoins. This is huge when we consider the fact that only 19M BTC are out there right now, out of which 0.5M is held by BTC. For a cryptocurrency, whose total circulation is estimated to be 21M, this share held by IBIT ETF alone goes over 2.3%.

The $353 Million Inflow

On Monday, 2nd December 2024, the US spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds saw a monumental inflow of over $350 million. Out of this, the majority was of BlackRock’s. As per the latest information $338.38 million was directed to BlackRock’s IBIT. This was followed by Fidelity’s FBTC and Ark Invest’s and 21Shares’ ARKB with $25.24 million and 17.24 million respectively.

Greyscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust and Franklin Templeton’s EZBC also pulled inflows worth $6.36 million and $5.56 million respectively. However, significant losses were associated with GBTC and HODL. With this, the spot ETFs currently hold over 1.083 million BTC, whose market value comes to around $103.91 Billion.

IBIT Surpasses MicroStrategy & Closes In On Satoshi

The IBIT ETF’s BTC holdings have successfully overtaken Microstrategy. Holding a total of 402,100 BTC, MicroStrategy was the top corporate BTC holder in the world. As of December 2nd, IBIT has crossed this mark and has an additional 100K to boast. Even though, Microstrategy still remains the biggest corporate holder as BlackRock is indirectly owning the BTC through the IBIT ETF.

With the 500K BTC milestone achievement, the IBIT has not only become the top traded ETF in the US but also one across the globe. Nakamoto’s wallet contains approximately 1.096 million BTC, which makes it around 5.22% of the total supply of the BTC. It should be noted that it only took BlackRock less than a year to accumulate 500K BTC. So if the current performance continues throughout the next year, then BlackRock ETF may as well surpass Satoshi’s wallet by the end of 2025.

Impact Of The 500K BTC Milestone

Soon after its launch, the IBIT became the top-performing spot ETF out there. As more and more users came forward to invest in the IBIT, the ETF has managed to gain the trust of both famed institutions as well as retail investors. Also, it is common knowledge that ETFs help in improving the liquidity of a crypto asset. With one as big as IBIT now fully functional, the liquidity of the BTC has significantly improved compared to the past years.

Also, it should be noted that the options trading of the IBIT has been an immense success since it began on the 19th of November. This combined with the fact that IBIT is being backed by BlackRock guaranteed people that the IBIT is in no way a scam. Now with the 500K BTC milestone achieved, we will most likely see a lot more investors flocking towards the famous ETF in the coming days.