IBIT Hits $70B in Assets. What’s Next for the Crypto Beast?

The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) just hit $70 billion in assets, faster than any ETF. It shows no sign of slowing.

While it’s not BlackRock Inc.’s biggest exchange-traded fund—that would be the $591.6 billion iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV)—it’s moving up the charts with a bullet. Launched in January 2024 among the initial pack of 11 spot Bitcoin funds, IBIT is now the 26th largest exchange-traded fund.  

It’s pulled far ahead of its closest rivals, the $20 billion Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and the $19.3 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC), which had existed as a closed-end fund with $27 billion in assets when the spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading last January.

The Next Stop for IBIT

The next stop, probably, is that the $132 billion in spot Bitcoin ETFs, led by IBIT, surpass the $174 billion in assets held in gold exchange-traded products, according to Bloomberg Intelligence research analyst James Seyffart.  

While the $100.5 billion SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) was the fastest-growing ETF before IBIT arrived, it reached the $70 billion mark after nearly 1,700 days, according to a chart from Bloomberg’s Jack Wang. IBIT hit it in 341 days, five times faster.

“Bitcoin ETFs are going to be bigger than gold ETFs,” Seyffart said. “Gold is a hedge, a diversifier, and Bitcoin could be those and also a trading vehicle. It’s not just a store of value.”

IBIT’s asset surge has been two-fold—not only are investors buying up the shares and pouring in billions but the underlying asset has been on a tear.  

Investors plowed a net $11.4 billion so far this year into IBIT, almost double the $6.2 billion they’ve put into GLD. Fueling the asset gain is Bitcoin’s 15% gain this year—not to mention that it’s nearly doubled since September.

With such a trajectory, one might imagine IBIT growing into the world’s largest ETF, surpassing the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO). Catching VOO would require a nearly 10-fold gain to hit that fund’s $667.8 billion in assets.

“It won't catch VOO any time soon but, long term, as long as Bitcoin sticks around, I'd expect spot Bitcoin ETFs collectively and IBIT specifically to account for a growing share of Bitcoin's market cap,” said etf.com Senior Analyst Sumit Roy. “There's a path to getting to VOO-like levels, but it will take time and depends on a lot of factors.”