Morgan Stanley, a multinational investment bank and financial services firm, disclosed its U.S. physical Bitcoin exchange-traded fund holdings of more than $270 million as of March 31 in its quarterly 13F report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.
Morgan Stanley said it holds $269.9 million worth of Grayscale’s convertible spot Bitcoin ETF, according to Fintel data. This makes it the third-largest holder of GBTC stock, behind Susquehanna’s $1.1 billion and Horizon Kinetics’ $946 million. The bank also disclosed a small allocation of $2.3 million to Ark Invest’s spot Bitcoin ETF, placing it among the top 20 ARKB holders, as per Fintel.
A 13F filing is a quarterly report filed with the SEC by institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in equity assets under management. The filing shows managers’ stock holdings at the end of each quarter. However, the 13F report only requires disclosure of long U.S. stock positions and stock options. It does not require disclosure of short positions and therefore provides only a partial view of the investment manager’s overall portfolio strategy.
Andrew Peel, head of digital asset markets at Morgan Stanley, said in a note to investors in January that the launch of a U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF was “a potential paradigm shift in the global perception and use of digital assets.”
In February, Morgan Stanley funds disclosed in an SEC filing that they may have exposure to spot Bitcoin ETFs. Last month, the company reportedly laid out risk management requirements for 15,000 brokers to recommend them to their clients.
Institutional ownership of spot Bitcoin ETFs increases.
Morgan Stanley is one of hundreds of institutional investors that have declared US spot Bitcoin ETFs in their first quarter 13F filings over the past few weeks.
Yesterday, Millennium Management held a total of $1.94 billion in shares as of March 31 across five funds – ARK Invest’s ARKB, Bitwise’s BITB, Grayscale’s GBTC, BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC – making it the largest in its category. Became a holder. But the fair market value of those stocks is only 3% of the hedge fund’s $64 billion in assets under management, according to quarterly 13F filings with the SEC.
“Millennium is the king among Bitcoin ETF holders, with approximately $2 billion across five ETFs. That’s one of over 500 holders (about 200x the average for new ETFs). The majority are investment advisors (60%), but there are also many hedge funds (25%). I’m not entirely sure what the hedge funds were, but they were certainly big buyers,” Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas wrote in a post to X.
Last week, Bracebridge Capital emerged as the top holder of Ark Invest’s ARKB and BlackRock’s IBIT spot Bitcoin ETF, and also holds a significant portion of Grayscales GBTC. As of March 31, total spot Bitcoin ETF holdings were valued at $434 million.
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board also disclosed a $163 million stake in BlackRock and Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin ETF on Tuesday.
Earlier this week, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said that the spot Bitcoin ETF allocation revealed in a recent 13F filing with the SEC was just a “down payment.”
“As of last Thursday, 563 professional investment firms reported owning $3.5 billion worth of Bitcoin ETFs. By the time the May 15 submission deadline approaches, we expect to have more than 700 specialty firms and total AUM approaching $5 billion,” Hougan said. And the size of ownership in the new ETF is “off the charts,” he added.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows worth $303 million on Wednesday, while Fidelity’s FBTC recorded net inflows worth $131.3 million. According to The Block’s pricing page, Ark Invest’s ARKB and Grayscale’s GBTC saw net inflows of $38.6 million and $27 million, respectively, yesterday as Bitcoin rose 8% to close above $66,000.
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