Grayscale and BlackRock Bitcoin ETFs Close Gap to 1.5 Billion Dollars

Crypto News– As the competition to lead the Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) market in the U.S. intensifies, the gap at the forefront has narrowed to $1.5 billion. Currently, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) holds the top position with $18.7 billion in assets under management (AUM), encompassing roughly 297,000 Bitcoin. However, persistent outflows from GBTC in recent months have propelled the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) to challenge the reigning leader.

Grayscale and BlackRock Bitcoin ETFs Close Gap to 1.5 Billion Dollars

With its AUM now standing at $17.2 billion, BlackRock’s IBIT is just $1.5 billion shy of surpassing GBTC. To provide context, the third-ranking fund in the Bitcoin ETF standings trails by more than $7.5 billion.

Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, previously forecasted that IBIT would overtake GBTC by the end of April. While this prediction appears unlikely to materialize, it was not far from the mark. The slowdown in daily inflows over four consecutive days for BlackRock’s IBIT is the likely reason behind the discrepancy in the Bloomberg analyst’s prediction. Nonetheless, prior to this deceleration, the fund experienced 71 consecutive days of inflows, positioning it halfway towards setting a new record for ETFs.

Since its inception, IBIT has yet to experience a single day of outflows, unlike Grayscale’s GBTC, which has consistently seen net outflows since its inception, according to CoinGlass data. On its worst day, March 19, GBTC witnessed an outflow of $618.2 million. Even if IBIT matched its best inflow of $856.53 million from March 12, the fund would still fall short by $25 million of overtaking the top spot. However, neither fund has seen such substantial flows in the past two weeks. Since mid-April, IBIT’s daily inflows have exceeded $30 million only once.