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Key Takeaways
- The amount of assets held by BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust has grown larger than their iShares Gold Trust, the second largest gold ETF by assets.
- A key difference: The iShares Gold Trust has existed since 2005, while the iShares Bitcoin Trust was launched earlier this year.
- iShares’ bitcoin ETF assets jumped amid a bitcoin rally and investor inflows after an election victory for former President Donald Trump.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) this week surpassed the firm’s longstanding iShares Gold Trust (IAU) in net assets.
As of Thursday, IBIT’s assets reached $33.2 billion, overtaking the $32 billion held in BlackRock’s gold ETF. One key difference: While IBIT was launched earlier this year, IAU has been trading since 2005.
IAU started the year with a roughly $25 billion head start on IBIT; BlackRock’s “digital gold” offering has now caught up in a matter of months. (IBIT still has a long way to go in terms of competing with the largest gold ETF, as SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) holds $76 billion worth of gold.)
While gold has performed well this year, with its price increasing around 80%, bitcoin (BTCUSD) has fared even better, rising 80% year-to-date performance thus far. The leading cryptocurrency hit another all-time high, rising above $77,000, Friday.
The recent rise in IBIT’s value has come after a rally in bitcoin partly attributed to Donald Trump’s election win. On Thursday, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw inflows nearing $1.3 billion, with BlackRock’s IBIT accounting for $1.1 billion of that total, according to Farside Investors. That was an all-time high for IBIT—or any other bitcoin ETF.