BlackRock’s IBIT ETF experienced zero inflow on Wednesday and Thursday, breaking its 71-day streak of continuous net inflows. This comes as Grayscale continues to face losses, bringing BlackRock closer to becoming the world’s largest Bitcoin ETF, especially with the looming competition from the Hong Kong market.
The IBIT ETF had an impressive run, but it came to an end on Wednesday. After 71 days of attracting new investment, the BlackRock Bitcoin spot ETF failed to do so as the market cooled off due to concerns about the post-halving BTC price dip.
In the past ten days, the IBIT ETF has been seeing lower inflows as investors remain cautious about how the BTC halving could impact its price. Since April 16, the ETF has only recorded over $30 million in inflows once, whereas before that, it would regularly surpass $100 million.
On April 24, the ETF’s appeal finally waned, and no new investment was made. Nevertheless, achieving a streak of 71 days is a significant accomplishment for IBIT. Only nine other ETFs have had longer streaks, with JPMorgan’s JEPI US Equity holding the top spot at 160 days. Three others have streaks of just over 100 days.
What sets IBIT apart is that all the other ETFs are tied to assets that have been around for centuries. IBIT is the only ETF on the list with an underlying asset that is less than two decades old and is still finding its footing.
Another remarkable metric is that even though BlackRock offers over 420 ETFs, IBIT has accounted for 20% of all investments in the company’s ETFs since January.
While BlackRock’s ETF streak has been grabbing headlines, the rest of the market hasn’t been performing well recently. On Wednesday, only Fidelity’s FBTC and ARK’s ARKB ETFs recorded inflows of $5.6 million and $4.2 million, respectively. Grayscale, on the other hand, lost $130.4 million, contributing to a total industry outflow of $120.6 million.
The situation worsened the following day. Fidelity lost $22.6 million, Ark lost $31.3 million, and Valkyrie’s BRRR ETF lost $20.2 million. Combined with Grayscale’s losses, the sector experienced a one-day outflow of $217.6 million, the highest since April 8.
Currently, Grayscale’s GBTC remains the market leader despite losing $1.2 billion in April alone. Since converting its Bitcoin Trust into an ETF, Grayscale has lost a staggering $17.1 billion. At this rate, BlackRock’s IBIT could soon surpass it, as the ETF now has $15.476 billion in assets.
In addition to the internal competition, American ETFs might face strong rivalry from the Asian market as Hong Kong prepares to launch its first Bitcoin spot ETFs. These ETFs, expected to launch on Monday, will attract capital from Hong Kong and even mainland China, where direct investment in crypto is banned.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $64,400, with a modest gain of 0.55% in the past day.