The Wisconsin Investment Board has sold its entire stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, exiting a significant investment of over $355 million that it initially made in early 2024. The fund had previously increased its holdings just last quarter. In contrast, UAE’s Mubadala has recently expanded its own IBIT holdings. The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF continues to lead in net inflows, surpassing $45 billion, while rival products lag behind.
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) has officially sold off its stakes in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), according to recent filings. This has been confirmed through a 13F filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15, which revealed that SWIB holds no spot Bitcoin ETF positions, having liquidated all 6,060,351 IBIT shares previously reported. At current market valuations, those shares had a worth of approximately $355.6 million.
SWIB initially embraced Bitcoin exposure, becoming one of the first state investment funds in the US to do so. Back in Q1 2024, just as Bitcoin products hit the market, they had invested $164 million into Bitcoin ETFs. However, this latest sell-off follows another quarter during which SWIB actually increased its investment, with the previous quarter showing an influx of IBIT shares, alongside a shift from Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to IBIT.
By the end of 2024, SWIB was managing assets exceeding $166 billion, which meant their Bitcoin ETF investments comprised about 0.2% of its total portfolio before the sell-off. This highlights that while Bitcoin has made inroads into traditional investment circles, it still represents a fairly minor piece of SWIB’s broader strategy.
In contrast, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala has been expanding its position in the same ETF. Its recent 13F filing indicated that Mubadala acquired an additional 491,439 IBIT shares in Q1. Their total now stands at 8,726,972 IBIT shares as of March 31, which is valued around $512 million currently.
The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF has been experiencing significant traction, reporting net inflows that surpassed $45 billion as of May 14. Just before this date, it had recorded net inflows of $232.9 million, marking an impressive streak of 20 days of inflows. Prior to May 13, the ETF reached a day of no inflow for the first time after weeks of success, but notably, it has not seen any outflows since April 9, a streak that now stretches over five weeks.
In comparison, other Bitcoin fund products like the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARK) have had significantly lower total net inflows at $11.6 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively. This data illustrates that IBIT continues to dominate the Bitcoin ETF landscape in terms of investment volumes.
