“The world’s largest asset manager is promoting its underperforming bitcoin fund over higher-fee winners, signaling a long-term commitment.”, — write: www.coindesk.com
The firm placed IBIT alongside two more traditional offerings: the iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) and the iShares Top 20 US Stocks ETF (TOPT).
Bitcoin has dropped more than 4% year-to-date, the first decline in three years, and IBIT has mirrored that performance. Even so, the ETF has seen strong investor interest. IBIT ranks sixth among all ETFs by 2025 inflows, pulling in over $25 billion since January.
“It’s easy to frame this as BlackRock simply promoting its highest-revenue product,” said Nate Geraci, president of the ETF Store. “But I see it more as the firm doubling down on its conviction that bitcoin belongs in diversified portfolios.”
Geraci noted that BlackRock has other ETFs, like the gold-focused IAU, that are outperforming IBIT and charge higher fees. Yet the firm is spotlighting a product that underperformed in 2025, a rare move in an industry that typically pushes its top-performing funds.
“If the objective were purely revenue generation, BlackRock has no shortage of ETFs with significantly higher fees that it could emphasize instead,” he said. “Asset managers aren’t typically in the business of spotlighting underperforming products, particularly when they have a deep bench of outperforming alternatives they could highlight.”
The inclusion of IBIT as a top 2025 theme signals a long-term bet on the crypto asset by the world’s largest asset manager. For investors who still see crypto as speculative or fringe, BlackRock’s positioning of bitcoin alongside cash and stocks may shift that perception.
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Behind the move is a sharp narrowing in the profitability of the base trade, in which traders attempt to capture a spread by buying spot bitcoin while selling BTC futures.
- Binance has now become the largest venue for bitcoin futures open interest with roughly 125,000 BTC, or about $11.2 billion in notional value.
- CME bitcoin futures open interest has fallen to around 123,000 BTC, its lowest level since February 2024.
- Tightening spot futures spreads triggered basis trade unwinds and reduced institutional demand on CME.
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