Wisconsin Investment Board sold off its Bitcoin ETF stash

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), which oversees the state’s retirement funds, unloaded its shares in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) during the first quarter, filings show.

The Wisconsin Investment Board reported no spot Bitcoin ETF positions in its 13F filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15, liquidating all 6,060,351 IBIT shares it reported holding from the previous quarter. 

The more than 6 million IBIT shares are worth around $355.6 million at current prices.

SWIB was one of the first state investment funds to provide Bitcoin exposure to US retirees when it bought $164 million worth of Bitcoin ETFs in Q1 2024 — the same quarter the Bitcoin products launched.

Source: Julian Fahrer

The mass sell-off comes only a quarter after SWIB reported additional purchases of IBIT shares in Q4, while reallocating all 1 million shares held in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to IBIT.

SWIB reported managing more than $166 billion worth of assets at the end of 2024, meaning the Bitcoin ETFs represented around 0.2% of SWIB’s entire portfolio before it sold them off.

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Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala snapped up another 491,439 shares of IBIT in Q1, according to its latest 13F filing.

Its purchases brought Mubadala’s total IBIT shares to 8,726,972 as of March 31, worth around $512 million at current prices.

IBIT has been on a tear

IBIT’s net inflows surpassed the $45 billion mark on May 14 after recording a net inflow of $232.9 million, Farside Investors data shows.  

IBIT’s impressive 20-day streak of net inflows came to an end the day before — May 13 — when it registered a “0” inflow on the day. The BlackRock-issued Bitcoin product still hasn’t seen an outflow since April 9 — more than five weeks ago.

The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARK) trail IBIT in all-time net inflows at $11.6 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively.

Flow data of the 11 US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs since April 28. Source: Farside Investors

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