Public Keys: BlackRock Bitcoin Fee Frenzy, S&P Catchall and New York Stakes

Public Keys is a weekly summary of Declutter that tracks the most important listed crypto companies. This week, BlackRock releases a new, most profitable ETF, S&P Global joins in and Coinbase stakes its claim on New York.

Bitcoin Rules at BlackRock

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust has become the asset manager’s most profitable ETF worth $12 trillion based on annual fees. According to iShares, the fund had $97 billion in assets under management at Thursday’s close.

That means the 21-month-old ETF is already generating more income than products that have been trading for 25 years, such as the iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF and the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF.

Even without Friday’s data, inflows for IBIT were already higher than last week’s, reaching $2.5 billion compared to $1.8 billion.

Analysts have said institutional flows will keep recent market volatility from becoming too widespread, despite news that President Donald Trump plans to impose “massive” new tariffs on goods imported from China.

The bullish badge of honor has done little to prevent IBIT stock from sliding into the red along with most other stocks on Friday. Just before the closing bell on Friday, IBIT was trading at $65.85, having lost 4% on the day.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, during a Legends Live @Citi appearance in August, predicted exactly the conditions under which analysts have been credited with Bitcoin’s recent surge.

“You own Bitcoin because you are afraid of your currency depreciating,” he said, referring to the demeaning trade of exchanging Bitcoin for gold as a hedge against currency dilution. “I became a believer,” he added.

S&P Cryptomixer

There are crypto assets, publicly traded crypto companies, and now an S&P Global index that combines the two.

S&P Global debuted its first hybrid ‘Digital Markets 50’ index earlier this week, which will combine cryptocurrencies and crypto-related stocks. At launch, the new benchmark will track 35 publicly traded companies connected to blockchain and 15 cryptocurrencies from the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Market Index.

The Broad Digital Market index includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, BNB, SolanaAnd Tron.

The fund would give asset managers a single fund to gain exposure to many of the largest assets associated with cryptocurrencies. And it also saves them the need to pick winners.

“Cryptocurrencies and the broader digital asset industry have moved from the margins to a more established role in global markets,” said Cameron Drinkwater, Chief Product & Operations Officer of S&P Dow Jones Indices, adding that the new index suite “provides market participants with consistent, rules-based tools to evaluate and gain exposure.”

In fact, for Coinbase’s staking services.

The crypto exchange has ended its years-long battle with state regulators to offer its crypto staking services to New York residents this week.

It’s not entirely clear how this happened, as a representative of the New York Department of Financial Services, which regulates the state’s crypto industry, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Declutter about when a deal was reached with Coinbase on staking, or whether the crypto exchange had to meet any obligations to reach such an agreement.

And a Coinbase spokesperson declined to comment on what the company had already said publicly in a press release.

Staking will be available for Ethereum, Solana and Cosmos, the company said. There are no signs yet that other crypto exchanges or companies would offer staking to New York residents.

Gemini still explicitly says its stakes are not available to New York residents in its customer agreement, which was last updated in August. Kraken’s Bitcoin bet still excludes New York and a handful of other states. Crypto exchange Bitstamp, although it was acquired by US-based Robinhood earlier this year, is limiting its staking service to Europe. The US trading platform still offers Ethereum and Solana staking, but is not available in New York.

So for now, Coinbase appears to have the New York crypto staking market to itself.

Other keys

More for Morgan Stanley: Morgan Stanley has thrown open the gates to give all its high net worth clients access to Bitcoin, Etheruem and Solana through its E*Trade platform.

Miners wave: Bitcoin miners saw their stocks rise early this week after BTC set a new all-time high above $125,000.