Can Bitcoin's IBIT Surpass SPY To Become The Largest ETF? We Asked AI Bots Perplexity And Grok This Question, And Here's What They Said

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY has arguably been the world's most popular exchange-traded fund over the past three decades, serving as the go-to choice for those looking to bet on the U.S. stock market.

On the other hand, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF IBIT has aced the game in the digital assets arena, exposing investors to the price moves of the world's largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin BTC/USD.

As of this writing, the SPY ETF had a whopping $592 billion in assets under management, while IBIT has amassed over $45 billion.

While it is currently very much a "David vs Goliath" case, we attempted to test the predictive capabilities of trending artificial intelligence chatbots, asking if IBIT would be able to exceed SPY in AUM.

What happened: We started with Perplexity AI, an AI-powered search engine that has grown in popularity over the last year.

In response to the question, "Do you think Blackrock’s IBIT ETF can surpass SPY stock in AUM?" the Perplexity bot scraped data available online, acknowledging IBIT's successful debut and SPY's big legacy.

However, it stopped short of making any definite predictions and gave what appeared to be a thoughtful response to a "speculative" question.

"In summary, while IBIT has shown remarkable growth, surpassing SPY in AUM would require substantial and sustained inflows, as well as a decoupling from its current market correlations. Given the current market dynamics and analyst views, it seems unlikely that IBIT will surpass SPY in the near future."

See Also: House Committee Favors Stablecoin Regulation To ‘Strengthen’ Dollar: Majority Whip Says CBDCs Against ‘American Values’

We then turned to Grok, another popular chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI, which returned a far more comprehensive answer.

Grok said that it was unlikely that IBIT would outperform SPY in the short term. 

"IBIT, while growing explosively, relies heavily on Bitcoin's price volatility and investor appetite for a single asset class—cryptocurrency—which is far smaller and more speculative than equities," the AI assistant added. 

Grok also highlighted that SPY's AUM was 10–12 times higher than IBIT, and its growth was underpinned by the scale of the $50 trillion-strong U.S. equity market.

However, it added that IBIT's long-term growth potential shouldn't be underestimated and that the ETF could realistically reach $100 billion in AUM in the coming years, driven by Bitcoin's surge toward $150,000-$200,000.

"In conclusion, IBIT surpassing SPY in AUM is possible but not imminent."

The diverse responses reflected the growing predictive powers of AI chatbots concerning key stock market trends.

It's worth noting that leading ETF analyst Eric Balchunas had said earlier that IBIT could outperform the King ETF in the years to come, but the process would take a “long time.”

Price Action: Shares of IBIT closed 5.76% higher at $48.14 at Friday's market close, according to data from Benzinga Pro. SPY stock gained 2.07% to close at $562.81.

The SPY stock lagged the IBIT stock in momentum as of this writing.  To check out the stocks with the highest momentum score, visit Benzinga's proprietary Edge Rankings website.

Photo courtesy: Shutterstock

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