BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has narrowly outperformed the S&P 500 since launch regardless of subjecting traders to a drawdown practically thrice as deep.
The iShares Bitcoin Belief, or IBIT, returned 67.74% from its Jan. 11, 2024 debut by means of Aug. 31, in contrast with 66.14% for Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF, or VOO, on a total-return foundation that reinvests dividends.
That left IBIT forward by simply 1.60 share factors after Bitcoin surged to a document excessive after which gave again a lot of these positive factors throughout a chronic downturn.
“Laborious to imagine IBIT is thrashing VOO since inception however 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% acquire to the El Toro curler coaster at Six Flags Nice Journey, whereas describing VOO’s advance as a stroll within the park. He mentioned the outcome was particularly shocking given the bearish temper that dominated Bitcoin from October by means of July.
IBIT’s slender lead got here with a 53% drawdown
The similarity in headline returns disappears when you take into account the trail traders 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 by means of April 8, 2025.
Traders who purchased each funds when IBIT launched due to this fact ended Aug. 31 with broadly comparable cumulative returns, however Bitcoin ETF holders needed to face up to a decline of greater than half from the fund’s peak.
Bitcoin’s value historical past 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 document excessive of round $126,000 in 2025 following Donald Trump's election victory. Nonetheless, its worth then fell as little as roughly $58,000 this 12 months 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 document highs.
Bitcoin's first institutional bear market is starting to take shape and draining liquidity
However, that volatility has not stopped Wall Avenue from constructing considerably deeper infrastructure across the asset. BlackRock has advisable a 2% BTC allocation for traders looking for diversification and long-term return potential.
In the meantime, this comparability additionally pits the 2 funds at very completely different levels of maturity.
IBIT, now the most important spot Bitcoin ETF, manages about $60 billion in belongings and has collected 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 belongings in June 2026, turning into the primary ETF to achieve that threshold.
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