Having launched on January 11, 2024, spot Bitcoin ($BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) turned 1,000 days old in October 2026 and have, by press time, collectively become the biggest $BTC holders in the world.
Indeed, while the legendary and anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto is the single largest holder of the digital asset with nearly 1.1 million of the cryptocurrency – worth roughly $90 billion at the October 8 price of $82,606 – the twelve ETFs together hold nearly 1.293 million – $107 billion.
These spot ETFs are the top Bitcoin holders
Simultaneously, the largest of the funds, BlackRock’s (NYSE: BLK) iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) is, on its own, one of the biggest owners of $BTC in the world with 806,037.6 Bitcoin worth roughly $66.66 billion – 3.84% of the 21 million total – per the data Finbold retrieved from BiTBO on Thursday, October 8.
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Notably, this number also means that IBIT is larger than the other eleven combined and accounts for 62.30% of the total held by these ETFs.
The second-biggest fund, Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), meanwhile holds 181,890.6 $BTC worth approximately $15.04 billion, and the third, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC), is at 126,585.8 – $10.47 billion.
Meanwhile, the two ETFs not included in the original eleven – Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF ($BTC) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) Bitcoin Trust ETP (MSBT) – are at 63,258.2 and 10,639.4 Bitcoins, respectively, worth about $5.23 billion and $880 million.
Lastly, one of the original spot $BTC exchange-traded funds, Hashdex Bitcoin ETF (DEFI), shut down in September.
Here’s how spot Bitcoin ETFs performed in their first 1,000 days
Elsewhere, all of the original funds saw exceptionally similar performance in terms of their shares, and they are, almost universally, up almost exactly 89% from their initial close. GBTC is the outlier since it started its life years earlier as Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and is up a substantially smaller 67%.
Bitcoin itself rose 92.77% from $42,853 to $82,606 within the same timeframe, meaning the cryptocurrency itself has, so far, proven a slightly superior investment to the spot ETFs.
Featured image via Shutterstock
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