According to a Form 13F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Aug. 14, Morgan Stanley reported that it owned 5,500,626 shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as of June 30. The investment was valued at $187.8 million at the end of June. .
The presentation notes under “Investment Discretion” indicate that all shares are assigned to Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc., making this a new position.
That makes Morgan Stanley a top five holder of the IBIT fund, MacroScope reported.
In a 13F filing today, Morgan Stanley reported that it owned 5,500,626 shares of iShares Bitcoin Trust as of June 30 (valued at $187,791,372 as of that date).
The filing notes under “Investment Discretion” that the 5.5 million shares are allocated to Morgan Stanley Investment… https://t.co/SKL9AF2R3V
— MacroScope (@MacroScope17) August 14, 2024
Big Banks Buying Bitcoin
The SEC’s Form 13F is a quarterly report that all institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in assets under management must file. The investment bank also disclosed additional investments in shares of its other Bitcoin ETFs, including Fidelity, Valkyrie, Bitwise, Invesco Galaxy and Proshares.
Morgan Stanley also reported about $148,000 in shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ( GBTC ) and $1.6 million in the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ( ARKB ). Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley authorized its 15,000 financial advisors to begin recommending Bitcoin ETFs to clients.
In addition to Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs also disclosed its Bitcoin ETFs in a 13F filing, revealing that it had acquired about $418 million for its clients in several of the recently launched products. Most of that sum reflected a stake of nearly seven million shares in IBIT valued at about $238 million as of June 30.
Goldman also took large stakes in Fidelity, Invesco Galaxy and smaller positions in several other Bitcoin ETFs, Reuters reported.
In a post on X on August 14, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan commented on the growing institutional interest in cryptoETFs during the second quarter, when asset prices fell.
“Institutional investors continued to adopt bitcoin ETFs in the second quarter. The trend is intact.”
However, domestic Bitcoin ETF flows in the United States have again turned negative, with an outflow of $81.4 million on August 14, according to preliminary data from Farside Investors.
BTC Price Outlook
Bitcoin prices are also in the red today, with a daily decline of 4.7% to $58,000 at the time of writing. Also, the liquidity heatmap suggests it could fall further.
The asset has remained capped since recovering slightly from its big dump below $50,000 on August 5.
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