In 2025 BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), launched in January 2024, became the fastest exchange-traded fund ever to accumulate $70 billion in assets. By year-end, executives described the firm's bitcoin ETFs as a top revenue source, generating hundreds of millions in fees.
The fund's rapid growth, later surpassing 700,000 bitcoin under management, demonstrated the scale of pent-up institutional demand for regulated bitcoin exposure.
Bitcoin, institutionalised
IBIT's success reshaped how traditional allocators access crypto, channelling flows through a familiar, regulated wrapper rather than direct custody. It cemented spot ETFs as one of the most consequential developments in the asset class's march toward the mainstream.
Scale creates its own gravity
Once one product holds most of the flow, spreads and options liquidity concentrate there, and the advantage compounds regardless of fee competition.
For the asset itself, a dominant custodian and a dominant wrapper are a concentration risk worth naming, even in a bull run.
