Milestone Moment! BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Surpasses Gold in Size for First Time!

BlackRock Group's fast-growing iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has now surpassed one of the largest gold funds in the old-school investment category. This is another milestone following the victory of President-elect Donald Trump.

　　As of Friday, bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) had about $34.3 billion in assets under management, according to FactSet. That puts it ahead of one of the largest gold ETFs, the iShares Gold Trust (IAU), which has slightly less than $33 billion in assets under management. However, IBIT is still about $30 billion short of the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), the largest gold ETF on the market.

　　IBIT has attracted about $1 billion in inflows over the past week and a total of $27 billion since its launch in January, according to FactSet.

　　These asset figures have yet to reflect the recent cryptocurrency rally so far over the weekend, where Bitcoin topped the major $80,000 mark and continued to surge more than once on Monday and hit a new all-time high of $89,599 early Tuesday, the biggest token has jumped about 32 percent since the Nov. 5 U.S. election, and pushed the overall value of the cryptocurrency market past its New Crown epidemic-era 's peak as traders bet on a post-Trump administration boom.

　　Trump has vowed to enact more cryptocurrency-friendly rules, and his Republican Party is tightening its grip on Congress to push his agenda. Other promises include creating a U.S. strategic reserve of bitcoin and promoting domestic bitcoin mining. His stance is a sharp departure from the Securities and Exchange Commission's crackdown on the divisive industry under the Biden administration, a shift that has galvanized speculative purchases of tokens large and small, raising the value of digital assets to about $3.1 trillion, according to CoinGecko.

Bitcoin nears $90,000, enters overbought territory

　　Bitcoin has more than doubled so far in 2024, thanks also to strong demand for U.S.-specific ETFs and the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts. Bitcoin's gains have outpaced gains in global stock markets and investments such as gold.

　　Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group, wrote in a report that bitcoin is in “beast mode.” “For traders who are not yet sure, the question is whether there is still room to chase this hot market or wait for a slight pullback and for some of the heat of the impulsive trend to subside.”

　　In the options market, investors have been betting that bitcoin will top $100,000 as early as the end of this year, according to derivatives exchange Deribit. Meanwhile, software company MicroStrategy Inc. bought about 27,200 bitcoins for about $2 billion between Oct. 31 and Nov. 10. MicroStrategy Inc. is the largest publicly traded company other than an ETF to hold bitcoin.