Wall Street lowers bitcoin ETF thresholds for self-custody whales

BlackRock and Bitwise lowered the minimum bitcoin values required for direct swaps into their spot BTC ETFs. BlackRock's IBIT ETF threshold fell to $1 million in July. The previous threshold was $25 million. Bitwise lowered its threshold to $3 million. The previous Bitwise threshold was $100 million. The swaps use a process called in-kind creation. Investors transfer BTC to the fund and receive ETF shares. Investors do not need to sell their BTC before buying ETF shares. Selling BTC can create capital gains taxes. IBIT has processed more than $5 billion in these swaps. IBIT had processed $3 billion in October. Robbie Mitchnick, BlackRock's head of digital assets, said crypto kidnappings, hacks, and custody failures are driving some investors to make the switch for all or some of their holdings.