Since the launch of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF in January, there have been a number of major US banks who have been added as partners.
A renowned Wall Street titan has also joined this list, despite having derided crypto for years.
The latest names
On Friday, BlackRock filed post-effective amendments in which its list of ‘authorized participants’ included Citadel, UBS, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup for its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).
An authorized participant has the responsibility of creating and redeeming the fund’s shares to keep the price of the ETF in line with that of Bitcoin (BTC).
It was confirmed by BlackRock that these banks had been added to its list of authorized participants.
The amended prospectus from the company disclosed that they can add additional authorized participants at any time, depending on the sponsor’s discretion.
Before these few new banks had joined the list, it already comprised of some prestigious names, which include Jane Street, JP Morgan, Virtu, Macquarie Capital and ABN AMRO.
These names had been mentioned in the prospectus that BlackRock had filed on January 10th, which was a day before the official launch of the Bitcoin ETF.
The background
Even though news of the new participants is now circulating in the market, the filings show that the four banks had already been added as authorized participants on March 4th.
For months, there had been rumors circulating in the market that Goldman Sachs could join both Grayscale and BlackRock.
This addition comes as a surprise because it is at odds with the opinions of the executives of the bank regarding the crypto industry.
In a recent interview, the CIO of the wealth management unit of Goldman Sachs, Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, stated that crypto could not be considered an ‘investment asset class’.
She further asserted that neither she nor the clients of her bank were ‘crypto believers’. With that said, there is a digital asset unit that Goldman Sachs has established.
Max Milton, its Asia-Pacific lead, had stated last month that their biggest clients were active in the crypto space and were exploring it.
Bitcoin ETFs
Matt Hougan, the CIO of Bitwise, which also launched a Bitcoin ETF, revealed that there has been significant demand from both hedge funds and retail clients.
He also asserted that they expected to see ETF growth for years, as the products were slowly being embraced by national account platforms.
On Friday, Eric Balchunas, the Bloomberg ETF analyst, said that major companies are now interested in getting a piece of the action and no longer have a problem in being publicly associated with crypto.
Since they were launched on January 11th, spot Bitcoin ETFs have recorded net inflows of about $12 billion.
As far as BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF is concerned, the total assets it now holds are valued at over $16 billion.
The companies are now working on launching a spot Ethereum ETF, but are facing resistance from the SEC, similar to what they saw in the case of the Bitcoin ETF.