BlackRock CEO ’very bullish’ on Bitcoin as its ETF crosses $17B

BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink says he’s been “pleasantly surprised” at the level of retail demand for his firm’s spot Bitcoin ETF.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has been “pleasantly surprised” by the performance of his firm’s spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) and has reiterated he’s “very bullish” on the long-term viability of Bitcoin.

“IBIT is the fastest growing ETF in the history of ETFs. Nothing has gained assets as fast as IBIT in the history of ETFs,” Larry Fink said in a March 27 interview with Fox Business.

Fink said the iShares Bitcoin Trust’s (IBIT) performance has even “surprised” him at how well it has performed over the first 11 trading weeks.

IBIT has a strong start to trading, tallying $13.5 billion in flows in the first 11 weeks, with an $849 million daily high on March 12, according to Farside Investors. IBIT averages a little over $260 million in inflows per trading day.

“We’re creating now a market that has more liquidity, more transparency and I’m pleasantly surprised. I would never have predicted it before we filed it that we were going to see this type of retail demand,” Fink said.

Asked whether IBIT would “do good, but not this good,” Fink responded: “Yes, definitely.”

“I’m very bullish on the long-term viability of Bitcoin,” the BlackRock CEO added.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says the $IBIT Spot #Bitcoin  #ETF is the fastest growing ETF in history
pic.twitter.com/NOsDlFgROi

— Simon Dixon (@SimonDixonTwitt) March 27, 2024

IBIT currently holds $17.1 billion in Bitcoin, according to BitMEX Research, and took only two months to reach the $10 billion mark — a milestone that took the first gold ETF two years to reach.

Of all the currently approved ETFs, IBIT only trails the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust in Bitcoin holdings — at $23.6 billion in BTC. Grayscale’s Bitcoin holdings have continued to slip, however, down from 620,000 BTC it held before converting to a spot Bitcoin ETF.

The nine-spot Bitcoin ETF issuers (excluding Grayscale) now hold over $34.1 billion in Bitcoin, with IBIT, the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) leading inflows. 

Related: Bitcoin currently in ‘middle of the bull run’ — Grayscale report

Meanwhile, some industry pundits predict that some spot Bitcoin ETF issuers could eventually shut down due to a lack of profits.

“Most of the current ETFs launched will never even break even as costs will only work if they get to billions of assets under management, which they won’t,” Hector McNeil, the co-CEO and founder of white-label ETF provider HANetf, recently told Cointelegraph.

Several ETF issuers have lowered fees to try to be competitive against some of the bigger players.

But these smaller issuers “face an uphill battle in entering this turf war of giants,” according to Bloomberg ETF analyst Henry Jim.

“If they match fees, they won’t have enough revenue to survive, and if they don’t lower fees, they won’t be able to gather enough critical mass assets to survive.”

Asset management firm Hashdex had its spot Bitcoin ETF approved on March 27, making it the 11th and latest entrant to a competitive spot Bitcoin ETF market in the United States.