BlackRock’s IBIT Nearly Doubles Gold ETF’s 20-Year AUM Milestone in Less Than 12 Months

Since the launch of the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) of the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, in January 2024, the fund has seen exponential growth, occasionally crushing milestones.

In a tweet, Ki Young Ju, the founder and CEO of the market analytics platform CryptoQuant, highlighted the latest feat for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). The ETF’s assets under management (AUM) are nearly double the figure that the BlackRock iShares Gold Trust (IAU) took 20 years to attain.

BlackRock’s gold ETF took 20 years to reach $33B AUM, while their #Bitcoin ETF nearly doubled gold’s AUM in less than a year. pic.twitter.com/CAkxX2xQZo

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) December 18, 2024

IBIT Doubles 20-Year AUM in One Year

According to Ju’s tweet, BlackRock’s gold ETF reached $33 billion in AUM in 2024 after 20 years of trading. However, data from the crypto derivatives data analysis platform CoinGlass shows IBIT’s AUM at $58.57 billion at the time of writing. This figure is almost double IAU’s AUM, and it took IBIT less than a year to achieve the milestone.

Earlier this month, CryptoPotato reported that IBIT became the fastest ETF to reach $50 billion in AUM, crushing the milestone 5x faster than any fund ever launched. The previous holder for this record, BlackRock’s iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA), took 1,329 days to reach $50 billion in AUM, while IBIT achieved the feat in 228 days.

It is worth mentioning that these feats have been driven by bitcoin’s (BTC) rising price. The cryptocurrency hit $100,000 for the first time on December 5 and has rallied as high as $108,200 since then.

Crushing Milestones and Exponential Growth

Besides doubling IAU’s 20-year AUM and crushing the $50 billion milestone faster than any other fund, IBIT has recorded other remarkable achievements since the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) greenlit its listing on January 11.

The BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF reached $10 billion AUM within seven weeks of launch, a feat attributed to 150 out of the 3,400 ETFs trading globally. IBIT joined the top ten United States ETFs with the longest inflow streaks after seeing inflows non-stop for 71 days post-launch.

Additionally, IBIT surpassed the AUM of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) within 96 of trading, becoming the largest spot Bitcoin ETF with 288,671 BTC; the fund’s holdings have now ballooned to 549,920 BTC, cementing its position as the largest Bitcoin ETF trading volume, AUM, and market cap.