Investors just ripped $333 million out of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) in a single day. It’s the largest withdrawal the fund has seen since its blockbuster launch earlier this year.
This wasn’t a one-off either—Thursday was actually the third straight day of outflows, the longest losing streak for a fund that started 2024 as the darling of institutional investors.
IBIT has brought in $37 billion in new cash since its January debut. It even helped push Bitcoin to a historic all-time high of $108,315 in mid-December. But just a few weeks later, the ETF is bleeding money as Bitcoin’s rally takes a breather.
Source: Bloomberg
The apex crypto now trades at $96,421 (an 11% drop from its ATH) and the broader group of U.S. based Bitcoin ETFs has seen $2 billion in net outflows since December 19.
Adding to the pressure, Bitcoin futures contracts on the CME Group—a key indicator of institutional demand—have dropped 20% since their December peak.
BlackRock’s long road to Bitcoin domination
Larry Fink, BlackRock’s CEO, once dismissed Bitcoin as a tool for money laundering. In 2017, during an infamous interview with CNBC, he compared Bitcoin’s frenzy to the Dutch tulip mania. By 2018, he doubled down, saying that BlackRock’s clients “had zero interest in crypto,” calling for more regulation in the industry.
But things started to change a bit in 2019. BlackRock quietly began building its digital asset strategy, bringing on Robbie Mitchnick, a former Ripple exec, to head the division. A year later, the company made its first big crypto play, investing in Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin.
By 2022, BlackRock was all in. It partnered with Coinbase, allowing institutional clients to trade crypto through its Aladdin platform, and later announced a spot Bitcoin trust designed specifically for institutional investors.
Then came 2024 when the SEC approved IBIT. Within weeks of its debut, the ETF became the first spot Bitcoin fund to hit $1 billion in trading volume. By October, it managed $30 billion in assets, holding over 417,000 Bitcoin—roughly 2% of the total supply.
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