BlackRock has facilitated more than $5 billion in bitcoin-for-share in-kind swaps from private wallets into its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) after cutting the minimum for such transactions to $1 million in July from an initial $25 million threshold, Bloomberg reported. Cumulative conversion volume is up from more than $3 billion when the trend was first detailed last October. Head of digital assets Robbie Mitchnick said the process can take more than a week and that inquiries now arrive from U.S. and non-U.S. clients, citing security incidents such as kidnappings, ransoms, and custody failures as motivations, while the exchange structure can help holders avoid an immediate capital-gains realization in many cases. Bitwise has lowered its own minimum from $100 million at launch to $50 million and then $3 million; Morgan Stanley's MSBT has drawn an estimated 5% to 7% of its roughly $560 million in assets via in-kind conversions; and 21Shares has averaged about $5 million per in-kind trade over the past three months. The mechanism has extended to ether at Grayscale and VanEck and to ether and solana at Bitwise, with Grayscale reporting in-kind at 62% of gross bitcoin creations and 63% of ether creations. Every trade still requires an authorized participant or market maker willing to take crypto custody, though issuers expect minimums to keep falling. Bitcoin climbed back above $81,000 for the first time since May as U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs took in more than $2.5 billion since August 17 and just over $3 billion for the month so far, the strongest monthly pace since October 2025.