Barclays discloses BlackRock Bitcoin ETF holdings worth $131 million

Global investment bank and financial services company Barclays disclosed holdings of 2,473,064 shares in BlackRock’s U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund IBIT, with a reported value of $131.2 million, according to a quarterly 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

This is a new position acquired during the fourth quarter of 2024, including the post-election period when pro-crypto Donald Trump was voted back in for a second term as U.S. President. In its previous 13F filing for Q3, 2024, Barclays disclosed a minimal position in Grayscale's Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF, BTC, which it no longer holds. While Barclays' IBIT allocation is much more substantial, it still only represents approximately 0.04% of its $356.9 billion portfolio value as of Dec. 31.

Barclays Q4 acquisitions place it in the top 10 holders of IBIT, according to Fintel data. The top known institutional holder of the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF is Goldman Sachs, having disclosed owning more than 24 million shares of IBIT as of Dec. 31, currently worth approximately $1.3 billion. Goldman also owns around $294 million worth of Fidelity’s FBTC, taking its total Bitcoin ETF investments to over $1.6 billion. Other notable large investors include Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corporation, DRW Securities and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.

13F filings are quarterly reports filed with the SEC by institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in equity assets under management. The filings provide a view of the manager's stock holdings at the end of each quarter.

However, 13F reports only require the disclosure of long positions in U.S. equities and options on equities. They do not require the disclosure of short positions, so they only provide a partial view of an investment manager's overall portfolio strategy.

As firms' 13Fs, including their spot Bitcoin ETF positions, first began to be filed in May last year, Matt Hougan, CIO at spot Bitcoin ETF issuer Bitwise, said the initial allocations were “just a down payment,” adding he’d expect them to rise to 1-5% of professional investor portfolios on average.

BlackRock’s IBIT currently dominates the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF market, attracting over $41 billion in net inflows since launching in January 2024, with $56 billion in assets under management, according to The Block’s Bitcoin ETF Tracker Page.