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BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF barely beat the S&P 500 after putting investors through a 53% crash

Comparison of IBIT and VOO showing 67.74% versus 66.14% total returns, 53.30% versus 18.69% maximum drawdowns, and their Sept. 1 moves.

BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has narrowly outperformed the S&P 500 since launch regardless of subjecting investors to a drawdown practically 3 times as deep.

The iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, returned 67.74% from its Jan. 11, 2024 debut through Aug. 31, in contrast with 66.14% for Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF, or VOO, on a total-return basis that reinvests dividends.

That left IBIT forward by simply 1.60 share factors after Bitcoin surged to a report high after which gave again a lot of these positive factors throughout a extended downturn.

“Hard to imagine IBIT is thrashing VOO since inception nevertheless it’s true,” Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote Sept. 1, noting that the hole remained slender.

Balchunas in contrast IBIT’s path towards a roughly 70% achieve to the El Toro curler coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure, whereas describing VOO’s advance as a stroll in the park. He stated the end result was particularly shocking given the bearish temper that dominated Bitcoin from October through July.

IBIT’s slender lead got here with a 53% drawdown

The similarity in headline returns disappears when you think about the path investors took to get there.

IBIT’s worst peak-to-trough decline reached 53.30% between Oct. 6, 2025, and June 30, 2026. VOO’s most drawdown over the comparability interval was 18.69%, from Feb. 19 through April 8, 2025.

Comparison of IBIT and VOO showing 67.74% versus 66.14% total returns, 53.30% versus 18.69% maximum drawdowns, and their Sept. 1 moves.

Investors who purchased each funds when IBIT launched due to this fact ended Aug. 31 with broadly related cumulative returns, however Bitcoin ETF holders needed to stand up to a decline of greater than half from the fund’s peak.

Bitcoin’s price history helps clarify a lot of that hole.

BTC traded close to $47,000 when US spot ETFs debuted in January 2024 and later surged to a report high of round $126,000 in 2025 following Donald Trump’s election victory. However, its worth then fell as little as roughly $58,000 this yr earlier than recovering to round $77,000 as of press time.

That reversal erased a lot of the efficiency benefit IBIT had constructed throughout Bitcoin’s run to record highs.

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Nevertheless, that volatility has not stopped Wall Street from constructing considerably deeper infrastructure round the asset. BlackRock has beneficial a 2% BTC allocation for investors in search of diversification and long-term return potential.

Meanwhile, this comparability additionally pits the two funds at very completely different phases of maturity.

IBIT, now the largest spot Bitcoin ETF, manages about $60 billion in property and has amassed roughly $63 billion of inflows since launch, giving BlackRock’s less-than-three-year-old product a scale few new ETFs have reached.

VOO stays in one other league. The Vanguard fund, which tracks the S&P 500 and gives broad publicity to large-cap US equities, crossed $1 trillion in web property in June 2026, turning into the first ETF to achieve that threshold.

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