The sudden drop in Bitcoin's price may have scared several Bitcoin ETF investors, but BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) held the floor. A Farside Investors report shows that only the asset manager purchased $40.8 million worth of BTC among all of its nine counterparts on Oct. 1.
Noteworthy, October is largely recognized as a traditionally bullish month, earning it the name “Uptober.”
This year is different from others, as the crypto industry was hit by liquidation as October began. In the last 24 hours, more than $500 million have been liquidated from several traders. Unfortunately, the flagship crypto asset is leading the liquidation, with about $141 million already removed.
This activity has triggered a price plunge for the cryptocurrency, further threatening investors' confidence. According to CoinMarketCap data, Bitcoin is currently trading at $61,091.47, with a 4.19% drop in the last 24 hours.
On Monday, BTC still traded at around $65,000. The drop in the coin's market value may have forced investors from other asset management firms to sell their holdings.
While BlackRock registered inflows, WisdomTree's BTCW, CoinShare Valkyrie's BRR, Franklin Templeton's EZBC and Invesco's BTCO did not conduct any transactions. On the other hand, VanEck's HODL, Ark's ARKB, Bitwise’s BITB and Fidelity’s FBTC all sold $15.8 million, $84.3 million, $32.7 million and $144.7 million worth of BTC, respectively.
This outlook reflects BlackRock’s confidence in the future potential of the underlying cryptocurrency. A few days ago, Arkham Intelligence reported that the asset manager purchased more Bitcoin than any ETF issuer has sold in the past few weeks. So far, the hedge fund's total cryptocurrency holdings have grown to more than 362,193 BTC.
Based on the coin's current price, the holding is equivalent to approximately $22 billion.