U.Today - In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, U.S. Head of BlackRock (NYSE:BLK)'s iShares Products Rachel Aguirre stated that she believes the launch and the first two weeks of IBIT (the ticker for its spot-based Bitcoin exchange-traded fund) trading have been more than just satisfactory for the company.
In slightly less than two weeks since the product was approved by the Securities and Exchange regulator and began trading, IBIT has seen its trading volume soar to a whopping $3 billion.
After the ETF was released, it attracted more than $1.6 billion in inflows, Aguirre added. “We are here to provide investors’ access [to Bitcoin] and that’s exactly what we are doing,” she said proudly.
Bitcoin sees big investor demand – Rachel Aguirre
The BlackRock executive stated that the company welcomes the recent regulatory developments it has seen in the U.S., therefore, she does not believe that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler is an enemy for the cryptocurrency industry on a broad scale.While avoiding a direct answer to the question about whether BlackRock has plans to launch a spot Ethereum ETF, she said that the company always tries to think ahead and see how they can be useful to customers, trying to foresee customer needs.
Aguirre believes that BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) is offering three USPs to do with Bitcoin – it makes Bitcoin a lot more accessible, eliminates all difficulties of holding Bitcoin directly (hot and cold wallets, remembering passwords and having to keep them secured) and also, she stated, iShares provides quality service to clients. Currently, BlackRock holds 16,361 BTC to back its recently launched spot Bitcoin ETF.