BLACKROCK’S BITCOIN AND ETHER FUNDS TOOK IN $7.9 BILLION IN Q3 — ASSETS UP 63% TO $79.6 BILLION, STILL 23% BELOW A YEAR AGO — $39 MILLION IN BASE FEES

BlackRock reported third-quarter results on October 14, 2026. Its digital asset funds, the bitcoin and ether products, ended September with $79.6 billion, up from $48.8 billion at the end of June. Clients added $7.9 billion of new money in the quarter.

Most of the jump was price. Bitcoin’s daily close went from $58,524 on June 30 to $83,556 on September 30, up 42.8%, and the funds’ assets rose 63%. Take out the $7.9 billion of inflows and about $22.9 billion of the gain came from price and other moves. Even so, the category is still 23.4% below the $104.0 billion it held a year earlier.

BlackRock’s cut is small. Base fees on digital assets were $39 million for the quarter, about a quarter of a percent a year on the average balance, and the whole category is 0.51% of BlackRock’s $15.49 trillion. For BlackRock it’s a rounding line. For bitcoin it’s a lot of coins held for people who never touch a key.

That’s the trade an ETF holder makes. Exposure for about a quarter of a percent a year, and someone else holds the coins. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $81,760.