iShares Bitcoin Trust ETFIBIT

iShares’ IBIT is the plain-vanilla Bitcoin ETF that launched on 18 January 2024 with the mandate to track the spot price of Bitcoin via physical Bitcoin held by Coinbase Custody and custodied by The Bank of New York Mellon. The wrapper’s job is to turn a complex asset into a line item on a brokerage statement, and IBIT does that with an expense ratio of 0.25% per year and daily creation/redemption in 100-BTC increments. The fund’s most recent 10-K does not list revenue or profit lines for the ETF itself because, as a passive fund, it does not earn income beyond its management fee and accrued Bitcoin price movements. (source: IBIT SEC EDGAR 10-K (2026-02-27), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1980994/1980994/000143774926006058/bit20251231_10k.htm)

As of the March 2026 8-K, BlackRock’s U.S. index and active equity ETF business oversees the product strategy for IBIT, while BRIL operates the ETF servicing platform that collects fees from authorised participants for each creation unit transaction. Those ETF servicing fees are disclosed in the services agreement but are not itemised in the 10-K; instead, the fund treats them as an embedded cost of the wrapper rather than a line-item expense. The fund’s AUM and daily volume are visible on Nasdaq’s IBIT page, where the ticker sits alongside standard ETF market data, but the wrapper does not publish an internal NAV beyond what the exchange reports. (source: IBIT SEC EDGAR 8-K (2026-03-31), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1980994/1980994/000143774926010480/bit20260328_8k.htm)

Custody sits at the heart of the wrapper’s promise: Coinbase Custody holds the Bitcoin backing the shares, and the services agreement caps its aggregate liability at $100 million per cold-storage address while recommending no single address exceed $80 million. The Bank of New York Mellon acts as trust administrator and cash custodian, maintaining a governance structure and change procedures that the agreement describes in Exhibits B and C. These documents are incorporated by reference in the fund’s registration statement but are not published in full in the 10-K, leaving investors to trust the summary language rather than inspect the plumbing. (source: Coinbase Custody Custodial Services Agreement, Exhibit A in Exhibit 10.1, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1980994/1980994/000143774924025406/ex_709945.htm; Services Agreement with The Bank of New York Mellon, Exhibit 10.4, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1980994/1980994/000143774923035559/ex_610609.htm)

The fund’s SEC filings repeatedly remind investors that Bitcoin can be purchased directly or via other vehicles, including securities backed by or linked to Bitcoin and future digital-asset financial products. The 10-K even recites a 2014 incident in which Huobi mistakenly sent 900 Bitcoin and 8,000 Litecoin to the wrong customers-a reminder that centralised platforms can mis-deliver, even before you layer on blockchain risks. The filing does not quantify the fund’s AUM growth since inception, leaving the public to rely on exchange-reported figures rather than issuer disclosure. (source: IBIT SEC EDGAR 10-K (2026-02-27), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1980994/1980994/000143774926006058/bit20251231_10k.htm)

For price context, IBIT trades on Nasdaq under the ticker IBIT and is visible on the exchange’s ETF market activity page alongside standard metrics such as last price, volume, and intraday range. The chart rail on that page shows standard ETF price action driven by Bitcoin spot moves; the wrapper itself does not publish an internal NAV or tracking error statistics in its public filings. (source: IBIT Nasdaq market activity page, https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/etf/ibit)

What we do know: the fund’s expense ratio is 0.25%, the wrapper’s fee is embedded via the BRIL services agreement, and the Bitcoin custody cap is $100 million per cold wallet cluster. What we don’t have in the public filings: a breakdown of secondary market trading spreads, an internal NAV calculation, or a published tracking error figure. The fund’s SEC documents repeatedly caution that investors can access Bitcoin by other means and that the wrapper is one route among several. (source: ETF Services Agreement with BRIL, Exhibit 10.4, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1980994/1980994/000143774923028549/ex_582019.htm; IBIT SEC EDGAR 10-K (2026-02-27), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1980994/1980994/000143774926006058/bit20251231_10k.htm)