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BlackRock’s income and bond funds have bought shares of the asset management firm's Bitcoin ETF, IBIT.
US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show that BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities acquired around $3.6 million worth of IBIT shares while BlackRock Strategic Global Bond bought $486,000 worth in Q1.
Both funds are managed by BlackRock's CIO of global fixed income, Rick Rieder.
BlackRock's IBIT is the second-largest Bitcoin ETF offering. With $17.24 billion AUM, IBIT is second only to Grayscales GBTC, which has $24.33 billion AUM.
Bracebridge Capital is the largest holder of Blackrock’s IBIT with an investment of $81 million. In Q1, the Wisconsin Investment Board bought 2.5 million shares of IBIT for a total value of $99.2 million. Elliot Capital also disclosed a $12 million stake in IBIT.
Last week saw the approval of Ethereum ETFs by the SEC, including an offering from BlackRock.
"For our clients, the overwhelming interest has been in Bitcoin, with some interest in Ethereum, and not much in the vast array of over 10,000 other assets. It’s important to distinguish between these,” Robert Mitchnick, head of crypto at BlackRock, said.
"I can't overstate how powerfully attractive that is to every investor," he added.. "We're probably going to see people come over from other countries who are big investors just to get that, it's just hard to compete with that."