As investors gear up for the launch of spot ether-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US, BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF is back in the spotlight with a big day of inflows.
The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) recorded $526.7 million worth of inflows on Monday, according to data from Farside Investors. The fund’s daily inflows were the highest since March, and accounted for nearly all of the $533.6 million that flowed into US spot bitcoin ETFs on Monday.
IBIT also holds the largest balance among the listed ETFs in the US, with 327,179 BTC worth $21.8 billion at current prices.
The fund’s year-to-date (YTD) inflows are impressive even outside its peer group of crypto-related funds. IBIT ranks fourth in YTD flows, outpacing the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 — a popular choice for investors looking for exposure to the Nasdaq 100 index.
“Compare the net sizes of these ETF’s vs. net inflows. Demand for Bitcoin via ETF has been relentless. Unprecedented really,” said Spencer Hakimian, founder of Tolou Capital Management , on X.
The price of bitcoin was fairly flat over the last 24 hours, trading at around $66,800 at the time of writing, data from CoinMarketCap shows.
According to onchain analyst Willy Woo, the launch of spot ether ETFs could potentially have a bearish impact on bitcoin.
“Some of the capital in BTC ETFs may rotate into the ETH ETF, hard to estimate how much, but this is a risk,” said Woo on X.
“In the short term BTC only needs to break 73k in order to light the fuse to short squeeze to 77k, above that it’s nothing holding it down for price discovery.”
