BlackRock clients buy $108M worth of Bitcoin through IBIT as institutional demand holds firm

BlackRock clients purchased $108.44 million worth of Bitcoin in a single session through the firm's iShares Bitcoin Trust, known as IBIT. The figure lands squarely in the middle of what has become a remarkably consistent pattern for the fund, which has been logging daily inflows ranging from $80 million to over $200 million.Since its launch in January 2024, IBIT has grown into the dominant force in US spot Bitcoin ETF market, routinely capturing between 50% and 80% of total daily or weekly inflows across all competing products. Grayscale's GBTC, once the only game in town for institutional Bitcoin exposure, has been on the other side of that trade, experiencing persistent outflows as investors rotate toward lower-fee alternatives.IBIT's holdings have swelled to somewhere between 770,000 and 786,000 BTC, making BlackRock one of the largest institutional holders of Bitcoin on the planet, even though the firm itself holds none of it on its balance sheet. BlackRock only transacts in Bitcoin at the explicit request of clients, a structural detail that matters: the firm is a conduit, not a speculator.Custody runs through Coinbase Prime, which handles the underlying Bitcoin on behalf of the trust.Multi-day buying streaks have pushed cumulative weekly inflows past $680 million during certain weeks. The scale of ongoing demand suggests this is not a novelty trade. Institutions are allocating to Bitcoin through IBIT the same way they allocate to gold through GLD: methodically, repeatedly, and in size.BlackRock made a quiet but consequential product change in 2026, cutting the minimum threshold for in-kind conversions from $25 million down to $1 million. In plain terms, this means investors who already hold Bitcoin directly can swap their coins for IBIT shares at a much lower entry point than before.Cumulative in-kind conversions surpassed $5 billion, as investors who were sitting on direct Bitcoin positions migrated into the regulated ETF wrapper. The motivations vary: cleaner tax reporting, easier custody, eligibility for certain institutional mandates that require regulated vehicles.Dropping the minimum from $25 million to $1 million expanded participation to family offices, smaller RIAs, and high-net-worth individuals who were previously priced out of the conversion mechanism.