IBIT's Options Open Interest Tops Deribit: How BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Became the World's Dominant Crypto Derivatives Venue in Just Two Years

BlackRock's IBIT — holding 806,700 BTC worth $63.7 billion — just surpassed Deribit in options open interest, completing crypto's decade-long journey from offshore speculation to regulated institutional infrastructure.

Executive Summary

• Options inflection point: On April 25, 2026, IBIT options open interest on Nasdaq reached $27.61 billion, eclipsing Deribit's $26.90 billion — a market that took ten years to build — signaling that regulated U.S. crypto derivatives have overtaken offshore venues for institutional price discovery.

• Record custody: IBIT now holds 806,700 BTC valued at $63.7 billion in AUM, capturing ~49% of the entire U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF market and trailing only MicroStrategy (815,061 BTC) as the world's largest concentrated Bitcoin holder.

• Structural demand resilience: Despite a 21.2% Bitcoin price correction in Q1 2026, IBIT recorded $8.4 billion in net inflows across 48 of 62 trading days — proving institutional allocators are treating Bitcoin as a permanent portfolio line item, not a speculative trade.

• Risk caveat: IBIT's dominance creates a systemic concentration risk; a single-fund redemption shock or regulatory action targeting BlackRock's crypto operations could trigger disproportionate market dislocation.

• Outlook: Charles Schwab's planned direct BTC trading rollout for 37 million accounts in H1 2026, combined with IBIT's deepening derivatives liquidity, sets the stage for the next wave of retail-meets-institutional capital formation.

Background & Market Context

The story of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust is, at its core, the story of institutional capital's slow-then-sudden capitulation to Bitcoin. When the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 after more than a decade of rejections, Wall Street's largest asset manager did not merely participate — it dominated. Within 341 trading days, IBIT became the fastest ETF in history to reach $70 billion in AUM, a record that the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) — the prior holder — had set over nearly two decades. The gold ETF analogy is instructive: GLD's 2004 launch is widely credited with legitimizing gold as a portfolio asset for institutional allocators. IBIT is completing the same transformation for Bitcoin, but at five times the velocity.

The macro backdrop accelerating this institutional embrace is equally important. In 2025–2026, a combination of persistent fiscal imbalances in developed markets, renewed inflation concerns tied to U.S. tariff escalation, and a weakening dollar have pushed family offices and sovereign wealth managers to seek non-correlated hard assets. Bitcoin, once dismissed as too volatile for serious allocators, now occupies the role of "digital gold" in many institutional frameworks — simultaneously a store of value hedge and a high-beta growth asset. The 2026 approval of Bitcoin as Tier 1 collateral for credit lines at Wells Fargo and JPMorgan's management of over $10 billion in BTC-backed credit facilities mark the clearest evidence yet of Bitcoin's integration into traditional financial plumbing.

The derivatives layer is where the April 25, 2026 milestone earns its analytical weight. Options markets are not merely speculative venues; they are the mechanism through which institutions hedge large spot positions, construct yield-generating strategies, and express complex views on volatility. That IBIT options open interest — at $27.61 billion — has eclipsed Deribit's $26.90 billion means that U.S. regulated infrastructure now sets the marginal price for Bitcoin risk. This is a structural, not cyclical, shift. When Deribit dominates options pricing, price discovery occurs offshore, outside the regulatory perimeter, subject to jurisdictional fragility. When IBIT options dominate, price discovery migrates into the NYSE/Nasdaq ecosystem, subject to the full oversight apparatus of the SEC and CFTC, with clearinghouse backstops and position limits that institutional risk managers can underwrite.

The speed of this migration is remarkable. Deribit's bitcoin options market has operated since 2016. IBIT options launched in late 2024. In under two years, IBIT accumulated open interest matching a decade-old incumbent. This pace reflects not just IBIT's distribution advantages through BlackRock's vast broker-dealer network, but a fundamental preference shift: U.S. institutional players — pension funds, endowments, insurance companies — face regulatory and fiduciary constraints that make Deribit inaccessible. The regulated ETF options market is the only viable venue for them. As those allocators scaled positions, the derivatives tail grew alongside the spot body.

Key Developments

January 2024 — Spot Bitcoin ETF Launch: After 10+ years of SEC rejections, BlackRock and nine other issuers launch spot Bitcoin ETFs simultaneously. IBIT attracts $1 billion in inflows on day one, setting an immediate record for ETF debut trading volume.

Q3 2024 — First Institutional Ownership Reports: 13-F filings reveal that 24% of IBIT's ownership has shifted to institutional hands — registered investment advisors, family offices, and hedge funds — within eight months of launch. This far exceeded analyst expectations of 10–15% institutional penetration at the one-year mark.

November 2024 — IBIT Options Launch on Nasdaq: The SEC approves listed options on IBIT, the first such approval for a spot Bitcoin ETF. Day-one options volume exceeds $1.9 billion in notional value, establishing immediately that institutional demand for derivatives was pent up and significant.

January 2025 — IBIT Crosses $70 Billion, Eclipsing GLD Speed Record: On trading day 341, IBIT surpasses GLD's record for fastest ETF to reach $70 billion in AUM. At the same milestone, GLD had taken over 3,000 trading days. In 2025 year-to-date, IBIT attracted $14.9 billion in net flows versus GLD's $8.3 billion, marking the first year Bitcoin ETF inflows materially outpaced gold ETF inflows.

Q1 2026 — Resilience Through Drawdown: Bitcoin corrects 21.2% from its cycle high, yet IBIT records $8.4 billion in net inflows for the quarter — posted on 48 of 62 trading days. The divergence between price performance and flow persistence becomes a key data point cited by institutional strategists as evidence of structural, allocation-driven demand rather than momentum-chasing retail behavior.

February 2026 — Banking Infrastructure Integration: Wells Fargo formally begins accepting IBIT shares as collateral for dollar-denominated credit lines. JPMorgan's digital assets desk confirms it manages over $10 billion in Bitcoin-backed credit facilities. These developments represent the full integration of Bitcoin into mainstream lending infrastructure — not just as an investment, but as a bankable asset.

April 23, 2026 — Record 806,700 BTC Custody: IBIT's Bitcoin holdings reach an all-time high of 806,700 BTC, valued at approximately $63.7 billion at prevailing prices. The fund adds 12,400 BTC in a single reporting period — a single-day inflow equivalent of $970 million — underscoring the pace at which capital continues to flow. IBIT now trails only MicroStrategy (815,061 BTC) as the world's largest concentrated Bitcoin holder.

April 25, 2026 — Options Open Interest Surpasses Deribit: IBIT options open interest on Nasdaq reaches $27.61 billion, eclipsing Deribit's $26.90 billion for the first time. IBIT's market share in total Bitcoin options open interest hits 52%, an all-time high. CoinDesk publishes the story under the headline: "BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF just hit a massive milestone that proves crypto is now a mainstream bet."

Technical Analysis

The ETF Mechanics and Authorized Participant Structure

IBIT operates as a physically-backed spot ETF, meaning each share represents a fractional claim on actual Bitcoin held in custody by Coinbase Custody Trust Company. The creation/redemption mechanism works through a small network of Authorized Participants (APs) — large broker-dealers like Jane Street, Virtu Financial, and JPMorgan Securities — who can create new shares by delivering Bitcoin to the custodian, or redeem shares by returning them in exchange for Bitcoin. This in-kind mechanism allows the ETF to trade at prices very close to Net Asset Value (NAV), with typical premiums/discounts of less than five basis points during normal market hours. The mechanism also ensures that large institutional purchases do not need to disturb spot Bitcoin markets — an AP can source Bitcoin bilaterally over the counter before delivering it to the custodian, dampening the price impact of large institutional allocations.

Custody Architecture and Security Model

Coinbase Custody serves as IBIT's sole custodian, holding 806,700 BTC in segregated, cold storage — meaning the private keys controlling the Bitcoin are held offline in geographically distributed hardware security modules, never exposed to internet-connected systems. BlackRock and Coinbase have implemented a multi-signature architecture requiring multiple independent key holders to authorize any transaction, with time-locked withdrawal processes that create a delay period during which unauthorized transfers can be detected and blocked. This custody model is audited by Deloitte under the AICPA SOC 1 and SOC 2 frameworks, providing the institutional-grade assurance that pension fund trustees and insurance regulators require before authorizing allocations. The $63.7 billion held in this structure represents the largest single pool of institutionally custodied Bitcoin in regulated financial history.

The Options Ecosystem and Volatility Dynamics

The maturation of IBIT's options market has introduced new structural dynamics to Bitcoin price behavior. Options market makers — who are now managing the largest books of Bitcoin gamma in U.S. regulated markets — engage in delta-hedging, purchasing or selling Bitcoin (via IBIT shares or directly in spot markets) as IBIT's price moves relative to their strike prices. At scale, this creates a "volatility dampening" effect: when Bitcoin rallies sharply, market makers who sold calls must buy underlying to stay delta-neutral, which absorbs selling pressure; when Bitcoin declines, market makers who sold puts must sell underlying, but their hedging is often pre-positioned. Academic research following GLD's options ecosystem development found similar volatility compression effects as options markets deepened. Bitcoin's realized 30-day volatility has declined from approximately 65% annualized in 2023 to roughly 42% in early 2026, a trend partly attributable to the maturing derivatives infrastructure.

Fee Economics and the BlackRock Revenue Engine

At a 0.25% annual management fee on $63.7 billion in AUM, IBIT generates approximately $159 million in annual management fee revenue for BlackRock — a number that will scale proportionally with AUM growth. This fee revenue is not just a financial windfall; it creates durable institutional infrastructure incentives for BlackRock to continue advocating for Bitcoin's regulatory legitimacy, expanding distribution through its wealth management channels, and building the operational capabilities that make Bitcoin accessible to the full spectrum of institutional allocators. BlackRock's total AUM reached a record $13.9 trillion in Q1 2026; IBIT represents less than 0.5% of that figure but is growing at multiples of the broader firm's AUM growth rate.

flowchart TD
    A[Institutional Investor\nPension / Endowment / Family Office] -->|Cash / BTC| B[Authorized Participant\nJane Street / JPMorgan / Virtu]
    B -->|Creation Basket| C[IBIT ETF Share Issuance\nBlackRock iShares]
    C -->|BTC Delivered to Custody| D[Coinbase Custody Trust\n806,700 BTC Cold Storage]
    C -->|IBIT Shares Listed| E[NYSE Arca / Nasdaq\nSecondary Market Trading]
    E -->|Options on IBIT| F[IBIT Options Market\n$27.61B Open Interest]
    F -->|Delta Hedging Flows| G[Bitcoin Spot Market\nPrice Discovery]
    F -->|Compared vs| H[Deribit Bitcoin Options\n$26.90B Open Interest]
    G -->|NAV Reference| C
    A2[Retail & RIA Investors] -->|Buy IBIT Shares| E
    I[Wells Fargo / JPMorgan\nCredit Facilities] -->|IBIT as Collateral| A
    style D fill:#f0a500,color:#000
    style F fill:#0057e7,color:#fff
    style H fill:#888,color:#fff
    style C fill:#1a1a2e,color:#fff

On-Chain & Market Data

The flow data for Q1 2026 carries a particularly important analytical signal: $8.4 billion in net inflows during a quarter when Bitcoin fell more than 21% is not the behavior of momentum investors. Institutional allocators on a systematic rebalancing schedule — or those responding to newly adopted Bitcoin allocation policies — do not pause capital deployment because of short-term price weakness. This persistence mirrors what occurred with GLD in 2008–2009, when gold ETF inflows accelerated during the financial crisis rather than retreating. The "buy the dip" behavior, when exhibited at institutional scale, has historically been a leading indicator of sustained multi-year demand trajectories for asset classes undergoing mainstream adoption.

The competitive market share data tells a parallel story about the winner-takes-most dynamics of ETF markets. IBIT's command of approximately 49% of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF assets, despite operating at the same 0.25% fee as Fidelity FBTC, reflects the power of distribution scale and brand recognition. BlackRock's relationships with RIAs, wirehouse wealth managers, and institutional consultants give IBIT a structural distribution advantage that fee competition alone cannot overcome. Grayscale's GBTC, hamstrung by its 1.50% fee — six times the cheapest competitor — continues to hemorrhage assets, losing roughly $1.2 billion in Q1 2026 even as its outflow rate slows from the multi-billion-dollar monthly bleeding of 2024.

Competitive Landscape

BlackRock IBIT — The Dominant Infrastructure Layer

IBIT's competitive advantages compound over time rather than erode. Its liquidity moat — $3.2 billion in average daily trading volume — means that institutional block trades can be executed with minimal market impact, something impossible in smaller competing ETFs. Its options ecosystem, now larger than Deribit, creates a self-reinforcing network effect: more options open interest means tighter bid-ask spreads on options, which attracts more institutional options users, which deepens liquidity further. BlackRock's Q1 2026 earnings confirmed that IBIT inflows were a material contributor to its record $13.9 trillion AUM figure, incentivizing continued investment in distribution and product development around IBIT.

Fidelity FBTC — Institutional Challenger with Retail Distribution

Fidelity's FBTC occupies a credible second position at approximately $17–18 billion in AUM, underpinned by Fidelity's self-custody infrastructure (unlike IBIT, Fidelity custodies its own Bitcoin rather than outsourcing to Coinbase) and its unparalleled distribution to retail investors through Fidelity.com. FBTC attracted $4.1 billion in Q1 2026 inflows, nearly half of IBIT's $8.4 billion — impressive, but the gap is widening rather than closing as IBIT's brand recognition among institutional allocators cements. FBTC's self-custody model is a potential differentiator in a scenario where Coinbase custody concentration becomes a regulatory focus.

Grayscale GBTC — Legacy Vehicle in Structural Decline

Grayscale's GBTC was the dominant Bitcoin investment vehicle for institutional and accredited investors for nearly a decade before ETF conversion. Its 1.50% fee structure — left over from its premium-era trust model — has proven fatally uncompetitive. After cumulative net outflows exceeding $17.5 billion since January 2024, GBTC retains roughly $15 billion in AUM primarily from holders who face embedded tax gains from early purchases and have not yet found a tax-efficient rotation path. Grayscale's Bitcoin Mini Trust (GBTC's fee-reduced sibling at 0.15%) has attracted some assets, but its AUM remains a fraction of IBIT's. GBTC's path forward likely involves continued AUM attrition until it stabilizes at a residual base of cost-basis-anchored holders.

SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) — The Precedent and the Benchmark

GLD's $101.9 billion AUM (mid-2025) still exceeds IBIT's $63.7 billion, but the trajectories have crossed in a strategically significant way: IBIT's year-over-year inflow rate materially exceeds GLD's. In 2025, IBIT attracted $14.9 billion versus GLD's $8.3 billion — nearly double — despite gold outperforming Bitcoin on a price-return basis. This inflow divergence suggests that new institutional capital is disproportionately choosing Bitcoin exposure over gold exposure when adding hard asset allocations, a secular preference shift that, if sustained, implies IBIT could surpass GLD in total AUM within 18–24 months.

Stakeholder Analysis

Institutional Investors (Pension Funds, Endowments, Insurance Companies)

These allocators are the primary beneficiaries of IBIT's milestone. The existence of a liquid, options-rich, regulated ETF with $63.7 billion in AUM and daily trading volume exceeding $3 billion provides the liquidity depth and regulatory clarity that fiduciary mandates require. Pension funds in states with favorable guidelines — California, Texas, Wisconsin — have begun making initial 0.5–1% portfolio allocations to IBIT. For a $50 billion pension fund, a 1% allocation is $500 million; at IBIT's liquidity levels, this can be executed over days rather than weeks. The risk for these allocators is primarily Bitcoin's underlying price volatility, which remains elevated at ~42% annualized despite recent compression.

Retail Investors and RIAs

IBIT's options market creates asymmetric opportunity for retail investors and their RIA advisors that previously required offshore account access. Covered-call strategies on IBIT positions can generate 8–15% annualized yield in current implied volatility environments, transforming Bitcoin from a pure directional bet into an income-generating portfolio component. This yield layer is attracting a different type of retail investor — income-focused retirees and yield-seeking conservative allocators — who would never have considered direct Bitcoin ownership. The risk is that retail options strategies can amplify losses in sharp downturns, a concern that financial literacy advocates and regulators have flagged.

Bitcoin Protocol and Developers

IBIT's dominance creates an indirect but significant effect on Bitcoin's development ecosystem. As institutional allocators increasingly frame Bitcoin as "digital gold" through the IBIT wrapper, there is diminishing advocacy pressure for Bitcoin to evolve beyond its store-of-value use case. The dominant ETF vehicle does not use the Bitcoin network — it simply stores keys. This is arguably fine for Bitcoin's core value proposition but may deepen the divergence between Bitcoin-as-investment and Bitcoin-as-payments-network narratives.

Regulators (SEC, CFTC, OCC)

The IBIT milestone creates both opportunities and responsibilities for regulators. On the opportunity side, IBIT's options market eclipsing Deribit means that U.S. regulators now have jurisdiction over the dominant Bitcoin derivatives venue — a massive improvement over a world where price discovery occurs on offshore, under-regulated platforms. The concern is concentration: a single ETF issuer controlling ~49% of Bitcoin ETF assets and 52% of regulated Bitcoin options open interest represents a systemically significant single point of failure. Regulators will likely begin monitoring IBIT's market impact with the same scrutiny applied to other systemically important financial intermediaries.

Competing ETF Issuers and Traditional Asset Managers

Bitwise, ARK 21Shares, Invesco, and other smaller Bitcoin ETF issuers face a compounding disadvantage: as IBIT's liquidity dominance deepens, institutional investors have less incentive to accept the liquidity haircut of smaller funds. The competitive response has been fee reduction (Bitwise charges 0.20%, ARK 21Shares charges 0.21%) and niche positioning. For traditional asset managers without a crypto ETF on the shelf, the IBIT milestone intensifies pressure to launch competing products or risk ceding the rapidly growing crypto allocation segment of institutional portfolio construction entirely.

Risk Assessment

1. Bitcoin Price Concentration Risk — IBIT holds 806,700 BTC in a single custody relationship with Coinbase. A catastrophic Coinbase operational failure, hack, or regulatory action against Coinbase Custody could threaten the integrity of $63.7 billion in client assets. Severity: Critical. Probability: Low (2–5%), but consequences would be systemic.

2. Regulatory Reversal Risk — A change in SEC or CFTC leadership or policy priorities — plausible in a future administration transition — could impose new restrictions on Bitcoin ETF operations, leverage limits on options, or custody requirements that force expensive structural changes. The political tailwinds that enabled the 2024 ETF approval could reverse. Severity: High. Probability: Moderate (15–25%) over a 2-year horizon.

3. Liquidity Cliff in Redemption Scenario — IBIT's $3.2 billion daily trading volume provides comfort under normal conditions, but in a severe Bitcoin bear market (60%+ drawdown from current levels), net redemptions could overwhelm the creation/redemption mechanism and create temporary NAV discounts, as occurred with GBTC during its closed-end trust years. Severity: High. Probability: Moderate (20–30%) over a full cycle.

4. Options-Driven Volatility Amplification — As IBIT's options open interest grows, delta-hedging flows become a larger fraction of total Bitcoin market activity. In a scenario of extreme directional Bitcoin movement combined with large gamma exposure, market maker delta-hedging could amplify rather than dampen price moves — the "volmageddon" scenario observed in equity VIX products in 2018. Severity: Medium-High. Probability: Low-Moderate (10–15%) in extreme market conditions.

Investment & Strategic Implications

For institutional allocators currently underweight Bitcoin, the IBIT options milestone resolves the last major objection that could not be answered with data: the absence of liquid, regulated derivatives infrastructure. Portfolio managers can now construct Bitcoin positions with the same toolkit they use for equity and commodity exposures — covered calls for yield, puts for tail protection, collars for capped upside in volatile environments. The 5% combined gold-and-Bitcoin allocation framework increasingly cited by institutional strategists (including some BlackRock research) has gained empirical support from backtests showing meaningful Sharpe ratio improvement over a pure 60/40 portfolio. For allocators who have been waiting for infrastructure maturity rather than conviction on Bitcoin's fundamentals, the April 25, 2026 Deribit inflection point is the signal.

For crypto-native funds and traders, the migration of options price discovery to regulated U.S. venues has actionable implications. Basis trades — capturing the spread between IBIT options implied volatility and Deribit options implied volatility — are now viable institutional strategies. The two markets, serving different investor bases with different access constraints and risk appetites, will periodically price volatility differently, creating arbitrage opportunities for well-capitalized participants who can access both. Additionally, IBIT's growing weight in institutional portfolios creates a more predictable quarterly rebalancing flow: as Bitcoin's price appreciates, pension funds and endowments with fixed-weight Bitcoin allocations will sell Bitcoin (via IBIT redemptions) to rebalance back to target — a structural source of predictable selling pressure that sophisticated traders can position around.

For builders and protocol developers, the broader implication of IBIT's institutional entrenchment is that Bitcoin's primary growth vector for the next 3–5 years will be driven by institutional capital allocation decisions rather than retail speculation cycles. This argues for building infrastructure that serves institutional workflows: compliant custody integrations, reporting standards, tax optimization tools, and Bitcoin-backed credit products. The Wells Fargo and JPMorgan credit facility integrations are early signals of a much larger credit market developing around Bitcoin collateral — one where IBIT shares are the standardized collateral instrument in the same way Treasury bonds function in traditional repo markets.

Outlook: 30 / 180 / 365 Days

• 30 days: IBIT options open interest will extend its lead over Deribit, reaching $30–32 billion as more U.S. RIAs adopt covered-call overlay strategies on IBIT positions. A single-day inflow record above $1 billion is likely within the next 30 days given the current $970 million daily inflow pace. Bitcoin price will track macro risk sentiment — a resolution to tariff uncertainty could trigger a retest of $85,000–$90,000 range.

• 180 days: Charles Schwab's planned direct BTC trading access for 37 million accounts, expected in H1 2026, will drive a new wave of retail capital into Bitcoin, but the structural beneficiary will be IBIT — Schwab customers will default to the most liquid, brand-recognized ETF wrapper. IBIT AUM could reach $80–90 billion by October 2026 if this rollout executes on schedule and Bitcoin reclaims the $75,000–$85,000 range. The critical condition: no adverse regulatory action against Coinbase custody or broad crypto market structure rules under current SEC leadership.

• 365 days: The one-year outlook hinges on whether IBIT surpasses GLD in total AUM — a milestone that would require IBIT to reach approximately $105–115 billion (accounting for GLD's continued growth). This is achievable but requires sustained institutional demand, no major Bitcoin price collapse, and continued policy stability. More structurally important than AUM figures: if IBIT options maintain their dominance over Deribit, the center of gravity for global Bitcoin price discovery will have permanently migrated to the regulated U.S. market — a change that has decade-long implications for how Bitcoin risk is priced, how Bitcoin volatility is managed, and how Bitcoin integrates into the global financial system.

References

1. CoinDesk — "BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF just hit a massive milestone that proves crypto is now a mainstream bet" (April 25, 2026): https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/04/25/blackrock-s-bitcoin-etf-just-hit-a-massive-milestone-that-proves-crypto-is-now-a-mainstream-bet

2. The Block — "BlackRock's bitcoin ETF surpasses 800,000 BTC in assets under management after $4 billion inflow streak": https://www.theblock.co/post/373966/blackrock-bitcoin-etf-ibit-800000-btc-aum

3. Yahoo Finance — "BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Holdings Hit Record 806,700 BTC Worth $63.7 Billion": https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/blackrock-bitcoin-etf-holdings-hit-203000203.html

4. TradingKey — "Wall Street's $54B Anchor: How BlackRock's IBIT Defies 2026 Crypto Volatility to Lead Institutional Adoption": https://www.tradingkey.com/analysis/cryptocurrencies/btc/261581598-bitcoin-btc-etf-proshares-wells-fargo-approval-odds-blackrock-ibit-gbtc-tradingkey

5. Blocklr — "Bitcoin ETF Performance Q1 2026: Inflows, Outflows, and What It Means": https://blocklr.com/news/bitcoin-etf-performance-q1-2026/

6. Intellectia.ai — "Bitcoin ETF Institutional Adoption Surges: $18.7B Inflows in Q1 2026": https://intellectia.ai/blog/bitcoin-etf-institutional-adoption-q1-2026

7. TradersUnion — "BlackRock bitcoin ETF options overtake Deribit in U.S. crypto derivatives market": https://tradersunion.com/news/financial-news/show/1947375-blackrock-bitcoin-etf-overtakes-deribit/

8. FinTech Weekly — "BlackRock's Q1 Numbers Are Strong. The Institutional Bitcoin Story Is in the Gap Between IBIT and MSBT": https://www.fintechweekly.com/news/blackrock-q1-2026-ibit-morgan-stanley-msbt-institutional-bitcoin-infrastructure

9. CryptoSlate — "IBIT vs GLD: A compelling tale of Bitcoin's growing dominance over traditional gold investments": https://cryptoslate.com/insights/ibit-vs-gld-a-compelling-tale-of-bitcoins-growing-dominance-over-traditional-gold-investments/

10. Tronweekly — "BlackRock's IBIT Becomes Fastest ETF To Reach $70B, Surpassing Gold ETF Record": https://www.tronweekly.com/blackrocks-ibit-etf-hits-70b-aum-in-341-days/

11. FinancialContent — "BlackRock Vaults to Record $13.9 Trillion AUM as ETF Inflows and Private Markets Fuel Q1 Earnings Surge" (April 14, 2026): https://www.financialcontent.com/article/marketminute-2026-4-14-blackrock-vaults-to-record-139-trillion-aum-as-etf-inflows-and-private-markets-fuel-q1-earnings-surge

12. CoinDesk — "Crypto Long & Short: When ETF options start driving bitcoin" (February 25, 2026): https://www.coindesk.com/coindesk-indices/2026/02/25/crypto-long-and-short-when-etf-options-start-driving-bitcoin