The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has added five new major participants to the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
BlackRock announced on April 5th that it added five new participants to the spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT). The new participants include major names in the finance sector such as Citadel, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Citigroup.
The increase in the total number of participants from four to nine is seen as a move to enhance the liquidity and accessibility of the spot Bitcoin ETF to investors. The previous four participants included Jane Street Capital, JP Morgan Securities, Macquarie Capital (USA) Inc., and Virtu Americas.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, commenting on the matter, expressed that large companies want to be part of the Bitcoin action and/or do not mind being publicly associated with it:
These additions come in the midst of outstanding performance from both IBIT and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) since their launches. According to Bloomberg data, these two spot Bitcoin ETFs have outperformed other 3,122 funds by recording a consecutive 49 days of net inflows.
