BlackRock named its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) exchange-traded fund (ETF) as one of the top three investment themes for 2025, a striking move given bitcoin slide this year.
The firm placed IBIT alongside two more traditional offerings: the iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF (SGOV) and the iShares Top 20 US Stocks ETF (TOPT).
Bitcoin is down more than 4% year-to-date, the first decline in three years, and IBIT has mirrored this performance. Even so, the ETF has experienced great investor interest. IBIT ranks sixth among all ETFs by 2025 inflows, pulling in over $25 billion since January.
“It’s easy to frame this as BlackRock simply promoting its highest-grossing product,” said Nate Geraci, president of the ETF Store. “But I see it more as the firm doubling down on its belief that bitcoin belongs in diversified portfolios.”
Geraci noted that BlackRock has other ETFs, like the gold-focused IAU, that outperform IBIT and charge higher fees. Still, the firm is focusing on a product that underperformed in 2025, a rare move in an industry that typically squeezes its best-performing assets.
“If the goal was purely monetization, BlackRock has no shortage of ETFs with significantly higher fees that it could emphasize instead,” he said. “Asset managers are typically not in the business of focusing on underperforming products, especially when they have a deep pipeline of outperforming alternatives they could highlight.”
The inclusion of IBIT as a top 2025 theme signals a long-term bet on the crypto asset by the world’s largest asset manager. For investors who still see crypto as speculative or fringe, BlackRock’s positioning of bitcoin alongside cash and stocks could change that perception.
