• This SEC disclosure follows similar ones from other large banks, such as JPMorgan Chase.
  • The investment was revealed via an U.S SEC filing made on May 14.

Investments in Grayscale and BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds were disclosed by the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB).

The entity in charge of the management of the state trust funds in Wisconsin revealed in a filing with the U.S SEC on May 14 that it owned over 2.4 million shares of the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and over a million shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), with a combined value of about $100 million and $64 million, respectively.

The filing shows that the two asset management companies would expose the Wisconsin Retirement System to cryptocurrency investments.

Increasing Institutional Interest

Approximately 48% of the more than $156 billion in assets handled by the SWIB in December 2023 were invested in public equities. Among other investments were stock in Cleanspark, MicroStrategy, and Coinbase. Investors shouldn’t take the state agency’s word for it that the data it supplied was “accurate and complete,” the SEC said.

This SEC disclosure follows similar ones from other large banks, including as JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, which both revealed holdings of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) totaling less than $1 million. One company, Susquehanna International Group, spent over a billion dollars on spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Q1 2024. A variety of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were included in the investments.

In January, the SEC gave the go-ahead for spot Bitcoin ETFs to be listed and traded on U.S. exchanges. The crypto market rallied post the approval with Bitcoin reaching news highs in Q1 2024.

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