BlackRock’s IBIT ETF experienced a significant milestone on Wednesday when it failed to attract any new investment for the first time since its launch, breaking a 71-day streak. With Grayscale also facing challenges, BlackRock is now on its way to becoming the world’s largest Bitcoin ETF, especially with impending competition from the Hong Kong market.
This remarkable and unprecedented run came to an end on Wednesday. After 71 consecutive days of net inflows, the BlackRock Bitcoin spot ETF was unable to attract new investments as the market cooled off due to concerns over the post-halving BTC price dip.
Over the past ten days, the spot ETF, known as IBIT, has been experiencing lower inflows as investors become cautious about how the BTC halving could impact its price. Since April 16, IBIT has only recorded over $30 million in inflows once, whereas before that, it regularly surpassed $100 million.
On April 24, Wednesday marked the day when the ETF’s appeal finally diminished, and no new investments flowed in. Nevertheless, achieving a 71-day streak is a significant accomplishment for IBIT. To put it into perspective, only nine other ETFs have managed to achieve longer streaks, with JPMorgan’s JEPI US Equity holding the top spot at 160 days. Three other ETFs have achieved just over 100 days.
What makes IBIT stand out is that all the other ETFs are linked to assets that have been in existence for centuries, while IBIT is the only ETF on the list with an underlying asset that is less than two decades old and is still finding its footing.
Another noteworthy metric is that BlackRock offers over 420 ETFs, yet since January, IBIT has accounted for 20% of all investments in BlackRock’s ETFs.
Bitcoin ETFs in general have been struggling recently, despite the attention garnered by BlackRock’s streak. On Wednesday, only Fidelity’s FBTC and ARK’s ARKB ETFs recorded inflows of $5.6 million and $4.2 million, respectively. Grayscale experienced a loss of $130.4 million, contributing to a total industry outflow of $120.6 million.
Unfortunately, the situation worsened yesterday. Fidelity lost $22.6 million, Ark lost $31.3 million, and Valkyrie’s BRRR ETF lost $20.2 million. Combined with Grayscale’s losses, the sector experienced a total outflow of $217.6 million, the highest one-day outflow since April 8.
Currently, Grayscale’s GBTC remains the market leader, despite losing $1.2 billion in April alone. Since converting its Bitcoin Trust into an ETF, Grayscale has lost a staggering $17.1 billion. At this rate, BlackRock’s IBIT is poised to surpass Grayscale and become the top ETF, with $15.476 billion in assets.
Amidst the internal competition, American ETFs may soon face formidable rivalry from the Asian market, as Hong Kong prepares to launch its first Bitcoin spot ETFs. These ETFs are expected to attract capital from Hong Kong and even mainland China, where direct investment in crypto is banned.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $64,400, with a modest 0.55% gain in the past day.
