BlackRock crypto holdings cross $100B, but ETH buys slows 

Key Takeaways

BlackRock’s crypto stash topped $100 billion, less than two years since Spot BTC and ETH ETFs debuted. Will the ETH ETF staking approval expand the holdings? 

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, now controls over $100 billion worth of crypto, underscoring increasing institutional demand for the asset class. 

According to Arkham data, the firm’s Bitcoin [BTC] holdings have grown to 740.5K coins worth about $85 billion as of press time. 

Ethereum [ETH] is the second-largest crypto asset held by BlackRock. As of writing, the firm had 3.66 million ETH, worth about $16B, collectively bringing its core holdings to over $100B. 

ETH accumulation fluctuates

However, BlackRock’s ETH accumulation has lost some steam towards the end of Q3, compared to BTC. For BTC, it ramped up its stash from 698K BTC to over 740K, about 6% surge in the past two months. 

In the past seven days of trading, BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust has seen over 58K ETH outflows, about a 1.4% decline over the same period.

The net assets dropped from over $17B to $15.9B amid the outflows and ETH price pullback. 

According to analytics firm LookOnChain, BlackRock sold nearly $200M worth of ETH on the 9th of September, 2x higher than the amount of BTC ($100M) offloaded over the same period. 

Simply put, investors in BlackRock crypto products have shown remarkable resilience in BTC compared to ETH. 

However, it remains to be seen how the potential staking approval could improve the overall demand for ETH ETFs. 

That said, Spot BTC ETFs remain the keyholders of BTC. As of September, this category of investors controls about 7% (1.4 million) of BTC’s total 21 million supply of coins. 

In contrast, corporate treasuries, led by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), command 4.6% (1 million BTC) of the overall supply.