BlackRock has cut the minimum transaction size for converting privately held Bitcoin directly into shares of its iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) from $25 million to $1 million, a 96% reduction, the company told Bloomberg. Bitwise has made a similar move, lowering its own minimum from $100 million to $3 million.
The change was implemented in July and reduces the entry threshold for what is known as an in-kind conversion — a process that lets holders of self-custody Bitcoin exchange their coins directly for ETF shares without first selling on the open market. Previously, this service was largely limited to the largest institutional whales.
By lowering the minimums, BlackRock and Bitwise are extending access to a much broader group of family offices and wealthy individual clients, who can now move meaningfully smaller amounts of Bitcoin onto regulated ETF infrastructure. The report notes that $5 billion in Bitcoin has already moved through this kind of channel.
The development points to a broader shift in how self-custody Bitcoin holders can interact with Wall Street's ETF products, moving custody of digital assets from a niche institutional offering toward a more widely accessible service.
