BlackRock #BitcoinETF Draws Investors Into #TradFi


BlackRock's spot $BTC exchange traded fund has become an entry point for investors who had never owned an ETF before, according to Jay Jacobs, the firm's US head of equity ETFs. He shared the data on Cointelegraph's Chain Reaction podcast on June 18, 2026.


Jacobs said roughly three-quarters of investors in the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) had no prior ETF exposure. "IBIT was a way for traditional investors to now get into digital assets, but we have seen a lot of people really kind of enter into IBIT, starting with digital asset ETPs," he said.


#IBIT launched in January 2024 and remains BlackRock's flagship crypto product. The fund holds $48 billion in assets under management and 765,936 BTC.


"We absolutely see it as this is a way to engage with a different group of people than maybe we've engaged with in the past," Jacobs said. He noted that investors who gain exposure through IBIT often go on to buy other BlackRock funds, including the S&P 500 fund IVV, the artificial intelligence fund BAI, and the gold fund IAU.

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June 19, 2026 at 3:27 PM
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