From Morgan Stanley to the State of Wisconsin, Here’s Who Just Invested Billions in Bitcoin ETFs

The 13Fs were eliminated: institutional investment managers submitted their quarterly reports to the Security and Exchange Commission that disclose shareholdings in the first quarter. For the 10 spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds that began trading in January, it is the first official analysis of who has added significant exposure to the original cryptocurrency.

Some 944 companies with a size of at least US$100 million reported having purchased from ETFs, shows analysis of Bitwise logs. In comparison, this is 10 times the number of investments in gold ETFs. The issuer that attracted the most interest was Black stonefrom IBIT, which added 414 institutional investors.

Collectively, professional investors hold exposure to more than $10.7 billion. In total, the 10 funds had about $54 billion in assets under management as of May 20, according to CoinGlass data.

“There were more people than I expected,” Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, told Fortune. “It’s absurd. It’s crazy. A good first season of 13F would maybe be 10. That’s how difficult it is. And then to have 414 is just crazy.”

Hedge funds dominated the list. Of these, the largest to acquire shares was Millennium Management, a New York-based fund that has invested $2 billion in various ETFs, as of March 31. Boston-based hedge fund Bracebridge Capital is also among the funds, which has $262 million. of shares in the ARK 21Shares ETF and US$81 million in IBIT. Bracebridge’s clients include institutional investors, such as endowments Yale University and Princeton University.

“I’ve been saying for some time that of the top 100 hedge funds in the world, we’ve seen that about a third of them are active in the market. [Bitcoin ETF] space, but seeing is believing,” Brett Tejpaul, head of institutional trading at Coin base, said last week at Fortune’s Future of Finance conference. “Being able to look at these records and see super recognizable names that own very significant amounts of ETFs is an incredible moment.

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The number of hedge funds with holdings also exceeded Balchunas’ expectations. He estimates that some of the interest may reflect commercial intentions that include arbitration: “There’s a lot of ‘arbitration’ you can do – but that’s a good thing, as it helps everyone get a better deal.”

‘Surprised to see a pension already’

A document from the Wisconsin state investment board, which manages $156 billion in state pensions, revealed IBIT purchases worth more than $99 million and an additional $63 million in Shades of grayof the Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

“I was surprised to see a guesthouse already,” Balchunas said. “I didn’t think we would see pensions or grants until at least the second quarter, or even for a year. These are the institutions that move the slowest.”

Major banks have also dipped their toes in the water.

Several so-called “Global Systemically Important Banks”, or G-SIBs, have disclosed investments in the products, including the Royal Bank of Canada, Wells Fargo, BNP Paribasand UBS. This list also includes Morgan Stanleywhich revealed a $269.9 million investment in GBTC, making it one of the fund’s largest holders, following a $1 billion investment from Susquehanna International Group, a quantitative trading firm, according to Fintel data.

The overall group of investors – pensions, hedge funds and registered investment advisors – entering the space, said Nathan Geraci, president of The ETF Store, “is highly notable given that these investors tend to act much more methodically when deals with new products, due to highly rigorous due diligence processes.”

This story was originally featured in Fortune.com

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