BlackRock doubles down on IBIT exposure through its Global Allocation Fund

BlackRock reported holding 430,770 shares of its spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) IBIT through its Global Allocation Fund. According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the shares amount to over $17 million as of Oct. 31.

As highlighted by X user identified as MacroScope, the amount of shares reported in BlackRock’s recent filing is 117% larger than the 198,874 shares reported on July 31.

Additionally, the current amount of IBIT shares reported is over 10 times higher than the 43,000 shares registered in the first quarter.

The Global Allocation Fund is a BlackRock product that invests in equities from the US and foreign markets, debt, money market securities, and other short-term securities. Its composition varies periodically.

Despite doubling down on its own Bitcoin product, the IBIT shares represent only 0.1% of the Global Allocation Fund’s $16.5 billion total size.

A force to be recognized

The ETF Store CEO Nate Geraci recently highlighted that the IBIT is among the 35 largest ETFs by assets under management out of over 3,900 funds.

He added:

“Ahead of ETFs such as iShares MSCI EAFE ETF, iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF, & Vanguard Total World Stock ETF. In less than a year. You have no idea how ridiculous that is.”

According to data from Farside Investors, IBIT amassed over $37 billion in positive net flows in less than one year since its launch. This is over three times the amount registered by the second largest ETF by inflows, Fidelity’s FBTC, which amassed $11.8 billion in capital.

This makes IBIT primarily responsible for the US-traded spot Bitcoin ETFs’ $35.4 billion inflows. Regarding assets under management, the IBIT holds 527,284 BTC as of press time, according to ETF tracker heyapollo. This is worth over $50 billion at Bitcoin’s current price of $95,753.77.

As with the net flows of spot Bitcoin ETFs, the IBIT also plays a key role in US-traded BTC investment vehicles surpassing gold ETFs’ total assets under management.

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