Goldman Sachs reveals $418m bet on Bitcoin ETFs

Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s leading investment banking companies, announced that it has a Bitcoin-related exchange-traded fund worth $418 million.

This disclosure came in Goldman Sachs’ latest 13F filing for the second quarter of 2024, published on August 14. According to the filing, the investment bank owns approximately 7 million shares in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin (BTC) Trust, worth more than $238 million.

It also owns 1.5 million shares of the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin ETF, currently valued at around $80 million, and 940,443 shares of the Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, with a market value of $56.19 million.

Other smaller positions include an $8.3 million investment in Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, about $750,000 in WisdomTree’s BTCW ETF and about $300,000 in ARK 21Share’s ARKB ETF.

What makes Goldman’s statement interesting is that several of its longtime C-suite executives have taken a hardline stance against crypto. For example, most recently in April 2024, the investment giant’s chief investment officer, Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, stated that she did not see crypto as an investment asset class, adding that Goldman Sachs “does not believe in crypto.”

But with crypto ETFs offering investors exposure without owning the assets directly, many traditional financial institutions have warmed to the sector; the latest data from Coinglass shows that Bitcoin ETFs currently have a total market value of $57.39 billion and total assets under management of $48.74 billion.

BlackRock’s IBIT ETF has recorded more than $20 billion in total inflows since its launch in January 2024, according to ETF Prime host Nate Geraci.

iShares Bitcoin ETF has raised around $20.5 billion this year…

The most recent of the 375 new ETFs set to launch in 2024 is the $1.3 billion non-spot BTC ETF.

The numbers are ridiculous at this point.

Spot btc ETFs (IBIT, FBTC, ARKB, BITB) = Top 4 launches of 2024.

Global X Russell 2000 ETF = 5.

— Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) August 14, 2024

Net inflows were boosted by reports that more than 600 institutional investors have allocated a portion of their funds to crypto ETFs. The head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs admitted in an interview with FOX Business in 2023 that the approval of spot crypto ETFs would increase liquidity and pave the way for pension funds and similar financial institutions to invest in crypto. To that end, institutions like the Michigan State Retirement System recently announced a $6.6 million investment in ARK 21Share’s spot BTC ETF.