BlackRock just filed to launch a Bitcoin fund that pays you to own it. On June 10, the world’s largest asset manager submitted what Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas called a likely-final amendment for the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF, ticker BITA, structured as a Delaware trust and set to trade on Nasdaq.
The pitch is to hold Bitcoin exposure, collect a regular paycheck, and pay a 0.65% fee to do it.
The structure is a covered call wrapped around BTC. BITA holds spot Bitcoin, shares of BlackRock’s $47 billion IBIT, and cash, and each month it sells call options against those IBIT shares to collect premiums. That premium becomes your income. The catch is the part the marketing whispers: those same options cap how high you ride when Bitcoin rips.
How BlackRock’s BITA Turns Your Bitcoin Into a Paycheck
Picture renting out a parking space you own. The lot still appreciates, but every month a tenant pays you for the right to use it. BITA does the same thing with Bitcoin. It owns the asset, then sells someone the right to buy its IBIT shares at a set strike price, pocketing a premium that flows to you as monthly income.
There’s a crucial wrinkle in the fine print. The fund plans to write calls on just 25% to 35% of its value at a time, a relatively light overwrite that leaves more of your upside intact than heavier covered-call products. Still, the trade is the trade. I
The income can be meaningful. Category estimates float annual yields in the 30% to 40% range during volatile stretches, since options premiums fatten when Bitcoin gets wild. But BITA’s own distribution rate has not been set yet, so treat any specific number as a guess until the fund actually starts paying.
Why That 0.65% Fee Is a Declaration of War
BlackRock is late to this party and clearly doesn’t care. YieldMax’s YBTC has run a covered-call Bitcoin strategy since April 2024 at 0.95%, and rival BTCI charges 0.99%. BITA undercuts both at 0.65%, lower than the two biggest funds in the covered-call category, the exact discount-and-dominate playbook BlackRock ran when IBIT launched and swallowed the spot market whole.
The gap sounds small until you scale it. On a $1 billion fund, the difference between 0.65% and 0.99% is roughly $3.4 million a year left in investors’ pockets. Pair that with the distribution machine that turned IBIT into a $47 billion giant, and BITA could pile up assets fast.
The urgency is not subtle. Four amendments in roughly five months is a team sprinting through the regulatory process, not babysitting a product:
BlackRock is “under gun to beat Goldman to market,” with Goldman Sachs targeting a competing Bitcoin income ETF around July 1. — Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst, Bloomberg
Who BITA Is Actually For, and Who Should Skip It
Here’s the honest sorting. If you want Bitcoin for the moonshot, the asymmetric bet that it doubles and you keep every dollar, BITA is the wrong tool and plain IBIT is your answer. The covered-call cap will clip you in exactly the scenario you bought Bitcoin for.
Bitcoin spent a decade as a pure bet on price. BlackRock is wagering the next wave of buyers wants yield instead. So the question worth chewing on: is a Bitcoin that pays you monthly the maturation everyone asked for, or just Wall Street quietly selling you back your own upside?