{"id":547,"date":"2026-08-26T14:34:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/?p=547"},"modified":"2026-08-26T14:34:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:34:32","slug":"blackrock-cuts-bitcoin-etf-swap-minimum-to-1-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"BlackRock Cuts Bitcoin ETF Swap Minimum to $1 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BlackRock has slashed the minimum bitcoin value required for a direct in-kind swap into its spot ETF <strong>IBIT<\/strong> to <strong>$1 million<\/strong>, down from <strong>$25 million<\/strong>, <em>according to a Bloomberg report<\/em> published Tuesday. Rival issuer <strong>Bitwise<\/strong> made a comparable move, cutting its own threshold to <strong>$3 million<\/strong> from <strong>$100 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The mechanism, known as in-kind creation, lets investors hand bitcoin directly to the fund in exchange for ETF shares, sidestepping a taxable sale-and-repurchase that would otherwise trigger capital gains. It gives large holders a way to exit self-custody without first converting to cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Volume through the process is already substantial. <strong>IBIT<\/strong> alone has processed more than <strong>$5 billion<\/strong> in these swaps, up from <strong>$3 billion<\/strong> in October, according to Robbie Mitchnick, BlackRock&#8217;s head of digital assets. He told Bloomberg that rising incidents of crypto-related kidnappings, exchange hacks and custody failures are pushing holders to move some or all of their bitcoin into regulated fund structures rather than manage private keys themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The trend extends beyond bitcoin. Issuers including <strong>Grayscale<\/strong> and <strong>VanEck<\/strong> now offer comparable in-kind swap mechanisms for ether ETFs, giving institutional holders a similar tax-efficient exit from direct custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lower thresholds land as bitcoin trades near <strong>$78,500<\/strong>, still up roughly 23% over the past seven days despite pulling back from a three-month high above $81,000 earlier this week. Spot bitcoin ETFs have absorbed billions in inflows since launching in January 2024, and the cheaper swap terms mark a further step in institutionalizing bitcoin ownership. As custody risk becomes a bigger factor in investor decisions, issuers competing for whale-sized allocations appear increasingly willing to lower the barriers that once kept the largest holders on the sidelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BlackRock has slashed the minimum bitcoin value required for a direct in-kind swap into its spot ETF IBIT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eft"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1stblock.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}