BlackRock's Bitcoin Bet Pays Off As IBIT ETF Crushes Records, Leaves CEO Larry Fink 'Pleasantly Surprised'

BlackRock Inc. BLK CEO Larry Fink is “surprised” with the performance of the company’s Bitcoin BTC/USD focused ETF IBT IBIT.

What Happened: During a conversation with Fox Business on Wednesday, Fink said “IBIT is the fastest growing ETF in the history of ETFs. Nothing has gained assets as fast as IBIT in the history of ETFs."

BlackRock's IBIT ETF outperformed expectations in its first 11 weeks, pulling in $13.5 billion, with a record one-day peak of $849 million on March 12. Averaging more than $260 million in daily inflows, the success of the ETF caught even Fink by surprise, who admitted, “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.”

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Why It Matters: When prompted about whether he foresaw IBIT’s success to be good, but not to the extent it has reached, Fink responded affirmatively, “Yes, definitely.”

Fink also reiterated his positive outlook regarding Bitcoin, saying, “I'm very bullish on the long-term viability of Bitcoin.”

The trust has proven to be a formidable player in the market, holding $17.1 billion in Bitcoin according to BitMEX Research. Its journey to $10 billion in managed assets was swift, reaching this landmark in two months, a feat that the first gold ETF achieved over two years.

Meanwhile, BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) saw over $160 million pour in. BUIDL, as BlackRock is expanding its reach with new investments from Ondo Finance, a tokenized real-world asset platform.

Last week marked the debut of BUIDL as reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday, quickly raising $160 million. Further boosting its prospects, Ondo Finance announced in a recent blog post its intention to invest “a substantial portion” of its own tokenized ETF – the short-term U.S. Treasury bills fund (OUSG) – into BUIDL.

Price Action: At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $69,729 down 0.66% in the last 24 hours.

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