BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Drives More Revenue Than Its S&P 500 Fund
According to calculations from Bloomberg, BlackRock – the world’s largest asset manager – generated an estimated $187.2 million in annual fees from the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) as of July 1st. That just beats out the $187.1 million made by the company’s flagship fund, iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV). How?… you might ask. Well, although the S&P fund is nearly 9x larger with $624 billion in AUM, it’s 0.03% expense ratio is also significantly lower than IBIT’s 0.25%. Read more →
Figma Quietly Holds $70M in BTC in IPO Filing
Yesterday, Figma filed for IPO, revealing its financials for the first time publicly after a failed acquisition by Adobe. And while the company is growing by an impressive 50% YoY, our focus is on something else… it’s BTC holdings. The filing revealed that Figma quietly purchased ~$70 million in Bitcoin ETFs in 2024. The board has also approved another $30 million in stablecoins for future Bitcoin purchases. What’s interesting here is that the company chose ETFs over a straight custody strategy. Furthermore, it just goes to show that a pubco can buy BTC without announcing it every single time. Read more →
Filling The Shoes of SVB
Anduril’s Palmer Luckey and Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale are backing Erebor, a new bank that wants to pick up where Silicon Valley Bank left off. With Founders Fund and other heavyweight VCs on board, Erebor has sought a national charter to position itself as the “most regulated” facilitator of stablecoin transactions, offering the “innovation economy” a compliant bridge to the US banking system that has been missing since SVB’s fall. Interestingly, Erebor recently merged with Palmer’s stealthy stablecoin startup, Atticus (valued already at $2.25b) just last month. Read more →
