BlackRock's BITA Bets Income Hunters Will Trade Upside for Yield, Launch Slated Within Days 📞

BlackRock filed a Form 8-A with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on June 11 for the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF, a filing that typically precedes a listing within roughly one week, and Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote on X that "if I had to bet I'd say next Thur $BITA goes live." The 8-A registration, made under Section 12(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, confirms plans to list the fund on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker BITA and follows BlackRock's fourth amended S-1 registration statement filed with the SEC on June 10.

The actively managed ETF is designed to track Bitcoin price performance while generating income through a covered call options strategy, writing calls primarily on shares of BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, or on indices that track spot Bitcoin ETPs. The fund plans to write calls on 25% to 35% of its value at a time, capping some upside in exchange for option premiums that are passed through to investors. It will hold bitcoin and IBIT shares, with IBIT having grown into the flagship product of the spot Bitcoin ETF segment.

In its latest S-1 amendment, BlackRock disclosed a 0.65% sponsor fee for BITA, a level that Balchunas noted sits below the two largest covered-call bitcoin funds, YBTC at 0.95% and BTCI at 0.99%. The issuer stated its intent to pay the fee with proceeds from the sale of IBIT shares, while the filing also referenced a potential waiver of fees. The trust's net asset value was listed at $9.99 million, or $49.97 per share, with Jane Street Capital and Virtu Financial Singapore named as the Bitcoin trading counterparties for on- and off-ramp transactions.

The launch would place BlackRock in direct competition with Goldman Sachs, which filed for its own Bitcoin Premium ETF with the SEC in April and whose product, planned to invest up to 80% of net assets in investments providing Bitcoin exposure, is expected to go live around July 1. BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, has become a major incumbent in the segment, with Balchunas and others describing the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF market as increasingly a two-firm race between IBIT and Fidelity's FBTC, though BITA's near-term debut would mark BlackRock's first income-oriented Bitcoin product on U.S. exchanges.