According to a report by Zombit, a document filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in May revealed that the Wisconsin Retirement Fund purchased IBIT from BlackRock and GBTC from Grayscale in the first quarter, with the holdings of the two ETFs totaling approximately $164 million as of March 31. This news shocked the industry at the time, as large institutions, especially pension funds, typically do not invest in newly issued ETFs like Bitcoin spot ETFs.
David Krause, a finance professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee and a member of the state’s investment committee, recently stated in an interview with local media in Wisconsin that as of the end of 2023, SWIB managed assets of around $156 billion. According to information on its website, this means that its holdings in Bitcoin ETFs account for only about 0.1% of its investment portfolio. However, Krause described this investment as a “dip in the water” and predicted that SWIB will increase its investment amount, with other retirement funds eventually following suit.
In the first three months of this year, nearly 500 institutional investors disclosed holdings in Bitcoin spot ETFs. As of March 31, the largest owner was hedge fund Millennium Management, which revealed holdings of assets worth $20 billion across multiple funds, accounting for approximately 3% of its total managed assets.