Institutions Are Still Buying Bitcoin ETFs, Bitwise Says

The number of institutional investors holding bitcoin ETFs rose 14% in the second quarter of the year to 1,100, the report said.

Institutions Are Still Buying Bitcoin ETFs, Bitwise Says

Institutions Are Still Buying Bitcoin ETFs, Bitwise Says

ᴊuly 25, 2023 at 11:18 a.m. PDT / Updated 2 hours ago

Institutions are still buying bitcoin ETFs despite a 12% price drop in Q2.

The number of institutional investors in bitcoin ETFs rose 14% in Q2.

Institutions now own 21.15% of bitcoin ETF assets under management.

Bitcoin (BTC) price fell 12% in the second quarter, but this didn’t stop institutional investors from significantly increasing their allocation in BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs), asset manager Bitwise said in a report on Monday.

“The biggest question in crypto right now is whether institutions and professional investors will allocate to crypto in a major way,” wrote Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan.

The aggregate number of institutional investors holding bitcoin ETFs in the second quarter rose 14% from the first quarter, to 1,100 from 965, the report noted.

These investors' share of total assets under management (AUM) of bitcoin ETFs also grew to 21.15% from 18.74%, Bitwise said, adding that institutions ended the quarter holding $11 billion in BTC ETFs.

“This is a great sign,” Hougan wrote, “if institutions will buy bitcoin when prices are volatile, imagine what could happen in a bull market.”

Bitwise noted criticism that bitcoin ETFs are predominantly owned by retail investors, an assertion it says is simply untrue. It observed that these ETFs have been adopted by institutions “at the fastest rate of any ETF in history.”

Most ETFs build momentum over time, and bitcoin ETF inflows are expected to be bigger in 2025 than 2024, and larger in 2026 than 2025, the note said.

“The institutions are coming, and they're coming in size,” the report added.

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs (GS) disclosed that it held positions in seven out of the eleven bitcoin ETFs in the U.S., at varying levels, according to a 13F filing earlier this month.

Read more: Goldman Sachs Holds Over $400M in Bitcoin ETFs

EDITED BY Will Canny

CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which also owns or operates several other cryptocurrency businesses, including Genesis Trading, Brave Software, BlockFi, CoinEd, and Luno. CoinDesk journalists are not permitted to purchase stock in any crypto company except for البيتكوين through Grayscale, and then only for journalistic purposes.

Our журналисты придерживаются строгих этических норм и редакционной политики. CoinDesk журналисты не участвуют в создании контента, который может повлиять на их акции или другие личные финансовые интересы.