BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Is $13 Billion Underwater

BlackRock's iBit is the worst-performing Bitcoin ETF by underlying profit and loss on its flows, sitting approximately 13 billion dollars underwater as of the episode date, with an earlier estimate placing the figure closer to 15 to 16 billion dollars. The average cost basis of iBit's Bitcoin holdings is approximately 79,500 dollars against a Bitcoin price of around 62,000 dollars at the time of recording. At the peak of Bitcoin's bull run, iBit had been approximately 30 billion dollars in cumulative profit, meaning most shareholders chose to hold rather than take profits at the all-time high, and many continued buying near the top, which drove the average cost basis progressively higher.

Fidelity's FBTC tells a different story. Shareholders took significant profits during December 2024 and maintained a more balanced ratio of inflows to outflows during Bitcoin's late rally. FBTC's average cost basis is approximately 55,000 to 55,350 dollars, and the fund is currently down only about 1.5 billion dollars on its flows, compared to a peak cumulative profit of approximately 14 billion dollars. BitB is also underwater, while the remaining Bitcoin ETFs are roughly breaking even. If Bitcoin drops further without capitulation from current holders, nearly every Bitcoin ETF could move into negative cumulative flow territory, and underwater shareholders may face increasing psychological pressure to sell over the coming months.

Every spot ETH ETF is underwater on its flows since launch. BlackRock's ETH ETF is the most deeply underwater, sitting 6.4 billion dollars in the red, with shareholders close to 60 percent down on net flows. The average cost of ETH held by the fund is approximately 3,900 dollars against a current ETH price of roughly 1,600 dollars. Most of the fund's inflows came when ETH was rallying hard alongside Bitcoin in mid-2025, and not enough profit taking occurred at the peak. The next closest ETH ETF in losses is approximately 18 percent down, believed to be Fidelity's FETH. The analysis notes that individual shareholders within BlackRock's ETH fund may still be ahead even though the fund as a whole is deeply underwater, and that the cost basis figures carry some imprecision because the exact price at which each fund acquired ETH for shareholders is not fully known.

SpaceX is conducting its IPO at a fixed price of 135 dollars rather than using a traditional demand-based pricing range, and is pushing to allocate 20 to 35 percent of shares to retail investors compared to the typical 5 to 10 percent. At the time of discussion, SpaceX pre-IPO shares trading on Hyperliquid were priced at approximately 138 dollars. The total market cap of all pre-stocks on crypto rails combined is 22 million dollars, with Anthropic accounting for roughly 38 percent of that figure, SpaceX 28 percent, and OpenAI 12 percent. The SpaceX pre-IPO token alone carries a market cap of 6 million dollars and approximately 11,000 holders, up from 6,600 roughly one month earlier.

These crypto-rail pre-IPO instruments are cash-settled and do not result in actual stock ownership at expiry, and the market is characterized as a proof of concept rather than a mature trading venue. SpaceX's unusually high direct retail allocation reduces the incentive to use crypto pre-IPO rails for SpaceX exposure specifically, since retail investors can access the actual IPO directly. The argument follows that if Anthropic skews its own IPO toward institutional buyers and limits retail access, crypto rails for Anthropic exposure could see stronger relative demand than was observed with SpaceX.