These Traditional Finance Giants Bought Bitcoin ETFs Last Quarter

Bitcoin keeps touching new levels of adoption in the real world, with traditional finance (TradFi) firms embracing the digital asset at a remarkable pace. The significant investment in spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) signifies growing institutional interest in crypto assets.

Last quarter, a staggering number of U.S. banks, investment managers, hedge funds, and professional firms bought spot Bitcoin ETFs, as seen in their 13F filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A tweet by the digital assets investment analysis platform K33 Research revealed that 937 professional firms in the U.S. were invested in the spot Bitcoin ETF market as of March 31. Hence, it may be difficult to know and list every TradFi firm that jumped on the Bitcoin ETF bandwagon in the first three months of the year.

TradFi Giants Jump on BTC Bandwagon

Some of the largest Bitcoin ETF investments came from Millennium Management, a heavyweight hedge fund, and Susquehanna International Group (SIG), a global quantitative trading firm. The firms reported investments of $2 billion and $1 billion in the Bitcoin products, respectively.

Millennium Management and SIG’s investments were followed by Bracebridge Capital, a Boston-based hedge fund that manages money for top universities like Yale and Princeton, and Boothbay Fund, another fund manager based in New York. The entities purchased ETFs worth $434 million and $377 million, respectively.

Substantial ETF disclosures also came from top U.S. banking firm Morgan Stanley and advisory company Pine Ridge Advisers, with investments totaling $269 million and $205.8 million, respectively.

In addition, alternative asset manager Aristeia Capital, investment firm Graham Capital, and hedge fund manager Crcm LP reported significant exposures of $163.4 million, $102.6 million, and $96.6 million, respectively, to the Bitcoin ETFs.

States to Follow?

Many other professional firms disclosed smaller investments in the Bitcoin ETF market. Some of them include Hightower Advisors with $68 million exposure, Fortress Investment Group with $53.6 million, Cambridge Investment Research with $40 million, Sequoia Financial Advisors with $12 million, Integrated Advisors with $11 billion, and Brown Advisory with $4 million.

Noteworthily, major banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo invested even smaller amounts, totaling $760,000 and $143,000, respectively, in the Bitcoin ETF market.

It is also worth mentioning that most of these firms spread their investments across several ETFs, with Grayscale’s GBTC, BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, and Ark Invest’s ARKB seeing the largest allocations.

Meanwhile, the digital asset market may soon witness an influx of investments from state-owned professional firms. The State of Wisconsin Investment Board has already set the pace with a $163 million exposure to Bitcoin ETFs.