Stablecoin Money Powers IQMM’s Record $17B Launch

The GENIUS Money Market ETF (IQMM) from ProShares has seen record growth since its launch last week.

The fund, which began trading on Feb. 17, saw a staggering $17.2 billion of inflows in a single day, according to FactSet data. That one creation accounted for essentially all of the fund’s assets.

That’s an extraordinary number. It’s on par with some of the largest single-day ETF creations ever recorded.

For comparison, the giant Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), with $870 billion in assets under management, has posted larger daily inflows, including $18.5 billion on Dec. 11, 2025 and $23.7 billion on Sept. 11, 2025.

But those were tax-related “heartbeat” trades—short-term flows that were later reversed. IQMM’s inflow is different. The assets have remained in the fund.

The most likely explanation is that a stablecoin issuer parked a large portion of its reserves in the ETF.

The Stablecoin Connection

Stablecoins are crypto tokens designed to maintain a stable value (typically $1) by backing each coin with reserve assets. Those reserves are typically invested in cash, short-term U.S. Treasuries and repo agreements.

The stablecoin market has ballooned in size in recent years as the tokens have evolved from crypto trading tools into broader dollar-based payment and settlement rails.

Tether’s USDT has roughly $184 billion in circulation, while Circle’s USDC stands near $75 billion.

Up until recently, there was limited regulatory clarity around who could issue stablecoins and what exactly those reserve assets had to look like.

That changed with the GENIUS Act (formally the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act of 2025) which established a regulatory framework for stablecoins. Among other things, it limits reserves to high-quality, highly liquid assets such as cash and short-term Treasuries.

That’s where IQMM comes in.

Built for the GENIUS Era

IQMM’s main selling point is that it adheres to “strict GENIUS Act requirements — stricter than those for traditional money market funds.”

The fund is structured to qualify as a “permissible reserve investment” under the GENIUS Act framework.

It invests entirely in cash and U.S. Treasuries with maturities of 93 days or less and targets a weighted average maturity of 60 days or less. It also incorporates money market-style liquidity guardrails.

In effect, it operates as a government money market fund under Rule 2a-7, but with an added layer of GENIUS-specific constraints.
Rule 2a-7 already imposes strict requirements around maturity, liquidity and credit quality for money market funds. IQMM goes further by sticking to the very front end of the Treasury curve.

The adherence to GENIUS Act requirements is likely why IQMM saw such a massive inflow. One or more stablecoin issuers, potentially Tether or Circle, appears to have allocated reserves into the fund.

The prospectus hints at that: “A substantial proportion of the shares of the Fund are expected to be held by one or more stablecoin issuers as part of the reserve assets backing their outstanding payment stablecoins.”

In other words, this is not a typical cash product aimed at the broader investing public.

How It Compares 

While IQMM is now by far the largest money market ETF on the market, it isn’t the biggest cash-like fund overall.

Money market ETFs that adhere to Rule 2a-7 only began trading in the U.S. in 2024, and the entire category has $23.5 billion invested in it.

But ultra-short-term bond ETFs have existed for years, including products that invest exclusively in short-term Treasury bills.
The largest in that category, the iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV), has about $75 billion in assets and charges 0.09%. Vanguard recently launched its 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF (VBIL), which charges just 0.06%.

Neither SGOV nor VBIL is technically a money market fund. They don’t operate under Rule 2a-7, and they aren’t structured to qualify as GENIUS-compliant reserve vehicles.

But from an investor’s standpoint, they serve a similar function as vehicles for T-bill exposure. They are just as safe, and importantly, they’re cheaper.

IQMM charges 0.20%, though that is reduced by a 5-basis-point fee waiver through Jan. 31, 2027.

For general investors, it’s hard to see why they would choose a 20-basis-point product over cheaper Treasury bill ETFs that offer similar exposure.

For stablecoin issuers, however, the calculus is different. They need to ensure that reserve assets clearly meet regulatory requirements. IQMM helps them do that.