Article by: ChainCatcher
Following the deadline for submitting the first-quarter 13F reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (May 15), approximately 1,000 institutions hold around $11.55 billion in Bitcoin spot ETFs.
Institutions vary in their levels of investment in Bitcoin ETFs. Among them, there are 18 institutions holding assets exceeding $100 million, 102 institutions holding assets exceeding $10 million, and 371 institutions holding assets exceeding $1 million. The majority of institutions’ BTC ETF assets only represent a small fraction of their total assets under management.
The 18 institutions holding assets exceeding $100 million are mostly well-known hedge funds and asset management companies, such as Millennium Management, Jane Street Group, and Schonfeld Strategic Advisors. Similarly, large institutions’ investments in crypto assets only represent a small portion of their total asset management scale.
Furthermore, while 13F filings serve as important indicators in the investment world, institutions holding Bitcoin spot ETFs do not necessarily indicate a bullish view on Bitcoin. For high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies are simply volatile assets, and most institutions acquire Bitcoin for speculative trading strategies rather than based on any fundamental value of Bitcoin. Does this imply that despite the official approval of BTC spot ETFs in the U.S. in January this year, the market still lacks long-term holders of Bitcoin?
However, overall, as of the end of the first quarter, the assets under management of spot BTC ETFs exceeded $11 billion, making it the most successful ETF launch in history. BTC ETFs have elevated Bitcoin to a recognized financial asset and opened pathways for professional investors, hedge funds, family offices, and institutions to participate in Bitcoin investments. Institutional interest in BTC ETFs is steadily increasing.
About 13F filings
The full name of 13F is SEC Form 13F, which mandates investment institutions or advisors with assets under management exceeding $100 million to submit quarterly reports within 45 days after the end of each quarter to publicly disclose their common stocks (including ETFs), options, American depositary receipts (ADRs), convertible bonds, etc., providing detailed information on the types of securities, stock names and quantities, total market value, etc.
Institutions must submit their 13F filings to the SEC within 45 days after the end of each calendar quarter, usually by February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15 each year (or the next working day if it falls on a holiday), and the reports are made public in the SEC’s database (EDGAR) after submission. Most institutions wait until the last minute to submit their filings to conceal their investment strategies from competitors. The data from Q2’s 13-F filings are worth paying attention to in the crypto market, and ChainCatcher will continue to monitor.
In this article, ChainCatcher has compiled a complete list of institutions holding BTC ETFs in descending order of investment amount based on the 13F filings published by ccn.com. Let’s take a look at the top ten institutions holding spot BTC ETFs –
Top ten institutions holding spot BTC ETFs 1. Millennium Management
Keywords: Hedge Fund
Millennium Management is a global investment firm founded by Israel Englander in 1989. The company is renowned for its multi-strategy hedge funds. As of the first quarter of this year, Millennium had invested approximately $2 billion in several ETFs, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT.O), Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, and funds launched by Bitwise Investments and ARK Investment Management. The total assets under management in Q1 were $234 billion, with crypto investments accounting for less than one percent.
2. Susquehanna International Group (SIG)
Keywords: Market Maker, Asset Management, Venture Capital Fund
Established in 1987, SIG’s business scope includes securities investment, trading, financial services, and is best known for pricing and trading financial derivatives (especially stock options). SIG is also a “designated market maker” for approximately 600 stock options and 45 stock index options at the Chicago Options Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and the International Securities Exchange, responsible for major stocks such as Google, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, General Electric, PepsiCo, and Microsoft. SIG Asia holds approximately 15% of ByteDance shares.
Despite investing $1.326 billion in BTC ETFs, this investment only represents a small portion of its investment portfolio, with the company’s assets under management at $576 billion at the end of the first quarter, with crypto investments accounting for only two thousandths.
3. Horizon Kinetics Asset Management
Keywords: Hedge Fund, Asset Management
Horizon Kinetics Asset Management was established in May 2011 through the merger of Horizon Asset Management, established in 1994, and Kinetics Asset Management, established in 1996. As early as 2016, Horizon Kinetics allocated 1% of its shares to invest in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. In 2020, the company held the fifth-largest stake in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, and also issued a “Blockchain Development ETF”, primarily investing in stock securities of listed blockchain development companies, American depositary receipts, and global depositary receipts.
The company’s assets under management at the end of the first quarter were $5.3 billion, with $946 million invested in BTC ETFs accounting for 17.8%.
4. Jane Street Group
Keywords: Hedge Fund, Market Maker
Jane Street is a quantitative trading firm and liquidity provider, with several founders in the crypto community coming from Jane Street, including SBF. Despite Jane Street announcing a reduction in its crypto business following the FTX incident in May last year when U.S. policies tightened, the company has continued to provide market-making services to the crypto industry. Jane Street Capital is still investing in the crypto space. Additionally, Jane Street is an authorized trader for Grayscale, Fidelity, and WisdomTree’s Bitcoin spot ETFs.
The company’s assets under management at the end of the first quarter were $478 billion, with $634 million invested in BTC ETFs representing only one-thousandth.
5. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors
Keywords: Hedge Fund
Schonfeld Strategy Advisors is a New York-based hedge fund established in 2015, with its consulting business stemming from the family office run by Mr. Steven Schonfeld. In the first quarter, Schonfeld invested $248 million in IBIT and $231.8 million in FBTC, totaling $479 million.
The company’s assets under management at the end of the first quarter were $15 billion, with $480 million invested in BTC ETFs, accounting for 3.2%.
6. Bracebridge Capital
Keywords: Hedge Fund
Bracebridge Capital is a hedge fund based in Boston, U.S., established in 1994, managing funds for Yale University and Princeton University endowments.
Bracebridge Capital made significant purchases of Bitcoin spot ETFs this year, including $300 million in Ark 21Shares’ ARKB, $100 million in BlackRock’s IBIT, and $26.52 million in Grayscale GBTC, accounting for 86% of its total assets. Its investment in ARKB represents 9.94% of the total outstanding shares, even higher than the 6.68% held by Ark itself.
7. Boothbay Fund Management
Keywords: Hedge Fund
Boothbay Fund Management is an institutional investment company based in New York City, established at the end of 2011, operated by renowned fund manager Ari Glass, managing two global multi-strategy multi-manager funds. Since 2013, Boothbay Fund Management has been investing in cryptocurrencies.
Boothbay Fund Management disclosed investments of $377 million in spot BTC ETFs, including $149.8 million in IBIT, $105.5 million in FBTC, $69.5 million in GBTC, and $52.3 million in BITB. Its assets under management in Q1 were $5.2 billion.
8. Morgan Stanley
Keywords: Hedge Fund, Asset Management
Morgan Stanley is an international financial services company based in New York, providing services including securities, asset management, corporate mergers and acquisitions, and credit cards. As of March 31, Morgan Stanley held nearly $270 million in GBTC. Following the approval of BTC spot ETFs in January, the bank opened up allocations to related ETFs for clients, indicating that the investments were likely on behalf of clients rather than the bank’s own bet on Bitcoin.
Its assets under management in Q1 were as high as $1.2 trillion, with a minimal percentage allocated to crypto investments.
9. ARK Investment Management
Keywords: Investment Fund, Asset Management
ARK Invest is an asset management company headquartered in New York, founded by “Cathie Wood” in 2014. The holding assets in Q1 were approximately $14 billion, with the most held stocks being COIN (Coinbase) and TSLA (Tesla).
In January this year, 21Shares and ARK Invest officially launched Bitcoin spot ETFs. Shortly after the issuance of the ETFs, Ark Investment sold a position worth $16 million in the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF held by one of its ETF products, ARK Next Generation Internet ETF, to purchase 365,427 shares of ARK 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF issued by Ark Investment, expanding its scale. After purchasing the ETF, ARK 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF currently accounts for approximately 1% of ARKW’s total position.
10. Pine Ridge Advisers
Keywords: Investment Advisor
Pine Ridge Advisers is a U.S. investment advisory firm established in 2014. The current assets under management are $855 million, with the company holding $205 million in IBIT, FBTC, and BITB, accounting for 23% of its total management scale. Analysts suggest that Pine Ridge Advisers may be engaging in arbitrage trading rather than allocating a quarter of clients’ portfolios to Bitcoin like some investment advisors.
List of buyers of spot BTC ETFs (investments exceeding $1 million)
