Unlike a traditional spot ETF that passively tracks Bitcoin’s price, the new product would layer an income strategy on top of BTC exposure. It plans to hold Bitcoin or related instruments while writing covered calls against those holdings to earn premiums.
Those premiums would then be distributed to investors as income, allowing the fund to capture value from Bitcoin’s frequent price swings rather than simply mirror them.
Meanwhile, Balchunas noted that this move could unsettle rival issuers already building income-based Bitcoin products, given BlackRock’s dominant position in the spot ETF market.
However, BlackRock appears content to double down on the proven market leaders.
That strong conviction appears to be paying off as the firm’s early Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs generate over $260 million in annual revenue.
“[BlackRock built] a quarter-billion-dollar business, almost overnight. For comparison, many fintech unicorns don’t make that in a decade. This isn’t experimentation anymore. The world’s largest asset manager has proven that crypto is a serious profit center.”
