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(Bloomberg) -- BlackRock Inc.’s flagship Bitcoin ETF has delivered strong returns since its launch — but for most investors, the outcome has been far more modest.

The iShares Bitcoin Trust (ticker IBIT) posted a more than-40% annualized return from its January 2024 debut through November 2025, data compiled by Bloomberg show, even after the recent crypto selloff. But the average investor earned just 11% annualized over the same period, according to new analysis by Morningstar. Much of that disconnect owes to poor timing: many investors piled in only after the fund had already surged — underscoring how market timing can blunt even the best-performing products.

That underperformance matters now because it helps explain why money is starting to flow out after a sweeping crypto downturn. IBIT just saw its sixth straight week of outflows — the longest losing streak since its inception — in a sign that the recent Bitcoin rebound has yet to restore investor conviction. In November, investors pulled more than $2.3 billion from the exchange-traded fund — the largest monthly redemption and only the second monthly withdrawal this year.

One reason: for many investors, the payoff hasn’t matched the pitch. The ETF wrapper may have solved the Bitcoin access problem — but not the timing problem.

“The ETF has done its job — it has tracked Bitcoin almost perfectly and thus notched excellent total returns since inception,” Jeffrey Ptak, a managing director at Morningstar, wrote. “The problem is investors appear to have arrived late to the party.”

BlackRock declined to comment.

The gap stems from the difference between what the fund earned and what investors actually experienced. Morningstar’s Ptak compared IBIT’s total return and dollar-weighted return. The result is a more realistic picture of how the average dollar fared.

In IBIT’s case, most inflows came after the ETF had already surged. By the time the fund’s asset base swelled, the pace of gains had slowed. That pattern — enthusiasm peaking after performance — is common in high-volatility investments, but the magnitude here was notable. Nearly 60% of IBIT’s total dollar gains came in its first 66 days, wrote Ptak, when few investors were actually in the fund.