South Korea’s national pension fund bought $33.7 million worth of MicroStrategy shares in Q2

South Korea’s National Pension Service, the world’s third-largest pension fund by assets, purchased MicroStrategy shares worth $33.7 million in the second quarter of this year.

The NPS’ holdings report, submitted this week to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, showed that the pension fund bought 24,500 shares of Microstrategy Inc. in the second quarter.

The move, intended to expand the fund’s indirect exposure to bitcoin, followed its previous purchase of 282,673 Coinbase shares, worth $19.9 million at the time, in the third quarter of last year.

The latest NPS filing showed that the pension fund’s holdings of Coinbase Global Inc. amounted to 229,807 shares, worth about $51 million, at the end of June. The fund held 253,763 Coinbase shares at the end of March.

MicroStrategy is the largest corporate bitcoin holder, owning 226,500 BTC, or about $13.2 billion, according to BitcoinTreasuries. Given its substantial bitcoin holdings, MicroStrategy has often been used as a proxy to bitcoin exposure in the traditional market. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week approved the first leveraged exchange-traded fund targeting MicroStrategy.

MicroStrategy’s stock has risen 92% so far this year, while Coinbase’s stock was up 25% year-to-date.