Bitcoin is rallying after leading U.S. investment firms, institutions, and banks\u00a0outed themselves as\u00a0among the\u00a0largest\u00a0spot BTC ETF whales.<\/p>\n
May 15 comprised the deadline for U.S. investment firms holding at least nine figures worth of spot Bitcoin ETF shares to disclose their Q1 holdings via 13F filings. <\/p>\n
Data from Fintel shows that 929 investment firms disclosed ownership in spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with the funds buying up $10.7 billion combined.<\/p>\n
The news served as a boon to the Bitcoin markets, with the price of BTC up nearly 6% in the past 24 hours to last change hands for $66,200, according to CoinGecko.<\/p>\n Data<\/a>\u00a0compiled by Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, shows that Millennium Management, an alternative asset manager commanding $64 billion in assets, is the\u00a0largest\u00a0institutional spot Bitcoin ETF shareholder with a more than $1.8 billion stake across four funds.<\/p>\n Analysis<\/a>\u00a0from Pivfund2100, a financial influencer, shows Susquehanna International Group coming in second with more than $1.23 billion worth of shares, followed by Horizon Kinetics with $907.8 million. <\/p>\n Notably, Morgan Stanley, one of the\u00a0world\u2019s\u00a0largest investment banks,\u00a0also\u00a0holds spot Bitcoin ETF shares valued at $269.9 million.<\/p>\n Balchunas noted that approximately 60% of institutional spot Bitcoin ETF whales are investment advisors, with hedge funds also accounting for a sizable\u00a0share of\u00a0investors at 25%.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNever can be sure what [hedge funds] are up to\u00a0but\u00a0they were\u00a0def\u00a0big buyers,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n Pivfund2100\u2019s\u00a0data indicated that\u00a065%<\/a>\u00a0of institutions reported holding shares in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust\u00a0ETF,\u00a0despite the fund suffering heavy outflows since converting from an exchange-traded product (ETP) in January.<\/p>\n Pivfund2100 noted that\u00a0the majority of\u00a0GBTC investors that purchased shares before November \u2014 when GBTC was trading at a significant discount relative to Bitcoin \u2014 have since reduced their position to realize arbitrage gains.<\/p>\n According to YCharts, the price of GBTC began trading below parity with Bitcoin in February 2021 and tagged a low at a more than 48% discount in late December\u00a02022. GBTC then steadily closing the gap, regaining parity with Bitcoin in January of this year. However, roughly\u00a0$17.5 billion<\/a>\u00a0has exited the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust since its conversion. <\/p>\n Institutional holdings account for $4.05 billion worth of\u00a0GBTC\u2019s\u00a0$19.1 billion worth of assets, according to Sosovalue.<\/p>\n IBIT, the spot Bitcoin ETF from BlackRock, the\u00a0world\u2019s\u00a0largest asset manager, ranked second\u00a0with\u00a045% of investors holding its shares. The 13F filings account for $3.2 billion of its $18.1 billion in assets. <\/p>\n Millennium Management is\u00a0IBIT\u2019s\u00a0largest institutional investor with $824 million\u00a0in\u00a0shares, followed by Shonfield Strategic Advisors with $248\u00a0million,\u00a0and Aristeia Capital with $163 million.<\/p>\n Fidelity\u2019s\u00a0FBTC fund was the fourth-most popular spot Bitcoin ETF among institutional whales\u00a0with\u00a0$2.1 billion of its $10.3 billion in assets under management (AUM). Millennium Management was again the largest FBTC investor with $806.6 million, followed by Schonfield with $231.8 million.<\/p>\n The Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ranked fourth with $759 million of its $3B AUM.<\/p>\nWhales pile into Grayscale and BlackRock\u00a0ETFs<\/h2>\n
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Tip of the iceburg<\/h2>\n