- BlackRock has updated its Authorized Participants (APs) list amid huge traction for spot Bitcoin ETFs.
- Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Citigroup, UBS and ABN AMRO join Jane Street Capital, JP Morgan, Virtu andMacquarie as APs for BlackRock’s IBIT.
BlackRock just updated its spot Bitcoin ETF prospectus, adding five new Authorized Participants (APs).
Those to make the new list of APs for the world’s largest asset manager’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) ETF are Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs, Citadel and Citigroup.
UBS Securities and ABN AMRO Clearing are also added, according to details in the prospectus.
With this, BlackRock, whose IBIT has stormed to billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin (BTC) holdings for its ETF, has pushed its APs total from just four to nine.
Wall Street’s embrace of Bitcoin continues
Initially, BlackRock named JP Morgan, Jane Street Capital, Virtu Americas and Macquarie as its authorized participants. This expansion comes amid expected spike in inflows as more people seek exposure to BTC, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
According to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and the other APs entry suggests “big time firms now want piece of action.” It also indicates that these companies are now open to “being publicly associated with” Bitcoin spot ETFs, he added.
“Up until now Citi, GS, UBS and Citadel were not named in any of these ETF filings. So they either new OR they were ashamed before to be ID-ed but are now cool. Either way, likely a result of the ETFs’ mega-flows/success,” Balchunas opined via a post on X.
Analysts have noted that one catalyst to the sharp spike in BTC price has been US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s approval of several spot Bitcoin ETFs in January.
For instance, Bitcoin ETFs traded more than $111 billion in March, nearly three times trades recorded in February and January.
Elsewhere, the regulatory nod added to the global trend in renewed mainstream adoption of crypto, with demand for more investment assets seeing BlackRock and other firms file proposals for spot Ethereum ETFs.
