BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust has lowered the minimum size for in-kind Bitcoin exchanges into ETF shares to $1 million from $25 million, widening access to a route that lets holders swap BTC for IBIT through authorized participants without selling first. Robbie Mitchnick, BlackRock's head of digital assets, said on Bloomberg's ETF IQ on August 10 that the firm wants to keep reducing the threshold over time, and Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas later highlighted the move. The change follows the SEC's July 2025 approval of in-kind creations and redemptions for crypto ETFs, replacing the cash-only structure used when U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024. The route may appeal to investors seeking to defer capital gains because IBIT is structured as a grantor trust, although Clinton Donnelly said the IRS has not formally ruled on that treatment and Balchunas said any tax bill would be delayed rather than erased. The shift comes as U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs drew more than $850 million last week and held about $78 billion in Bitcoin, even as the group saw a $145 million outflow on August 10 and a TRM Labs analysis detailed a roughly $116 million theft affecting more than 5,200 Coldcard hardware wallets, an incident that shook confidence in self-custody.