Bitcoin
Wisconsin Pension Buys $160 Million in Bitcoin ETFs
The Wisconsin State Investment Board is among the first U.S. public pension funds to allocate a spot bitcoin ETF, recent SEC filings show.
According to SWIBs Form 13F for Q1 2024the $156 billion pension fund acquired purchased $64 million in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF and $99.2 million in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, 1,013,000 shares and 2,450,400 shares, respectively.
Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust closed at $63.17 at the end of the first quarter. iShares Bitcoin Trust closed the quarter at $40.47.
A SWIB spokesperson confirmed that the fund held positions in both ETFs as of March 31, 2024. SWIB’s Form 13F was released on Tuesday.
Not the first?
Speaking at an event earlier this month in London, Manuel Nordeste, head of digital assets business development at Fidelity Investments, noted that defined benefit plans and other pension funds “are just starting to talk to their investment committees” about crypto assets.
“Now we are starting to have conversations with larger institutional investors, with real money, and we are gaining some of those clients, as well as companies and so on,” Northeast said.
Speaking to CoinDesk, Robert Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock, said that institutional investors, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and endowments, are currently discussing how to approach crypto ETFs.
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Tag: Bitcoin, Bitcoin ETF, Manuel Nordeste, Robert Mitchnick, Wisconsin State Investment Board, SWIB