The traction that IBIT has garnered helped it to outshine GBTC significantly in terms of inflows.
Within just six months of listing spot Bitcoin ETFs, investment asset management firm BlackRock Inc (NYSE: BLK) has seen a massive turnover in its balance sheet.
By this ETF move, BlackRock has sustained its stance as the world’s largest asset manager position. The firm boasts of having up to $10 trillion in Assets Under Management (AUM). According to BlackRock, it achieved this feat in Q2 2024.
BlackRock Holds More Bitcoin Than MicroStrategy
Its AUM saw a surge of almost 13% from the year-earlier period to $10.6 trillion. In a published statement, BlackRock noted that its Earnings Per Share (EPS) moved from $9.06 to $9.99. The company’s revenue increased 7.7% to $4.8 billion. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) which received approval from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on January 11 contributed significantly to making the firm the largest public holder of Bitcoin.
For a very long time, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy Inc (NASDAQ: MSTR) held this position with a consistent Bitcoin accumulation strategy. Its last acquisition of an additional 11,931 BTC for $786 million brought the business intelligence and software firm’s Bitcoin holding to a total of 226,331 units. With a record of more than 300,000 BTC, BlackRock has successfully beaten MicroStrategy to the position of largest BTC holder.
Several institutions have gained exposure to Bitcoin through BlackRock’s IBIT. One example is Iowa-based investment manager City State Bank which invested in BlackRock and Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETFs. City State Bank’s 13F filing dated July 8, 2024, shows that the institution acquired 33 units of the BlackRock IBIT and 50 units of GBTC.
On its own, the traction that IBIT has garnered helped it to outshine GBTC significantly in terms of inflows.
BlackRock’s BUIDL Nears $500M in AUM
Meanwhile, BlackRock’s IBIT is not the only product that has been gaining attention and neither is it the only contributor to the firm’s surging performance. Four months ago, the spot Bitcoin ETF issuer unveiled its first tokenized fund issued on a public blockchain in collaboration with Securitize. It was designed to provide qualified investors with the opportunity to earn United States dollar yields by subscribing to the Fund through Securitize Markets, LLC.
BUIDL has seen significant acceptance and adoption from several exchanges. At the beginning of the second half of this year, the leading credit network for institutional crypto trading Hidden Road announced plans to start accepting BlackRock’s BUIDL token, which represents BlackRock’s money market fund, as collateral across its network. Hidden Road’s global head of business development Michael Higgins cited BUIDL’s capacity to be used for both collateral and interest as the reason behind the firm’s interest.
It was only a matter of time before BUIDL moved to holding up to $491 million in AUM. The tokenization solution is gradually nearing a $500 million milestone. All of these massive performances have consolidated to birth BlackRock’s total AUM of over $10 trillion.
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