BLK - BlackRock Holds Nearly 200000 Bitcoin In ETF

2024-03-12 09:48:00 ET

Asset management giant %BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) holds nearly 200,000 %Bitcoin (CRYPTO: ) in its spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) less than two months after its launch.

The holdings of the %iSharesBitcoinETF (NASDAQ: IBIT) are greater than other spot Bitcoin ETFs and close to the holdings of software firm %MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR).

BlackRock said it held 195,985 Bitcoin as of March 8, a stake worth $14.16 billion U.S. based on the current price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

That puts BlackRock close to MicroStrategy, which just purchased an additional 12,000 Bitcoin, bringing its holding to 205,000 digital tokens worth $14.81 billion U.S.

Since the launch of the spot ETFs on Jan. 11 of this year, BlackRock's IBIT fund has become the industry leader, attracting hundreds of millions of dollars of investor capital a day, and reaching $10 billion U.S. of assets under management at the fastest pace on record.

Red hot demand for the new spot Bitcoin ETFs has pushed the price of BTC up more than 60% this year and to an all-time high of $72,758 U.S. reached on March 11.

Bitcoin’s price is currently holding near record levels as an upcoming halving event scheduled for April 20 approaches.

Halving events are when the amount of Bitcoin mined, and the rewards given to miners, are reduced by 50%.

That the April halving event will lower the issuance of new Bitcoin at a time when demand is extremely high is expected to push the price of the largest %Cryptocurrency even higher.