Wisconsin Investment Board has completely sold its Bitcoin ETF holdings
Wisconsin, one of the first states in the United States to offer Bitcoin services for retirees, previously held over 6 million shares in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF.
According to records, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), the entity overseeing the state's retirement funds, sold its shares in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) ETF in the first quarter.
The Wisconsin Investment Board reported no spot Bitcoin ETF position in the 13F filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15, liquidating all 6,060,351 shares of IBIT that they reported holding from the previous quarter.
More than 6 million shares of IBIT are valued at approximately $355.6 million at current prices.
SWIB was one of the first state investment funds to offer Bitcoin services to retirees in the U.S. when it purchased $164 million worth of Bitcoin ETF in the first quarter of 2024 — the same quarter as the launch of products $BTC .
The mass sell-off occurred just one quarter after SWIB reported having purchased additional IBIT shares in the fourth quarter while reallocating the entire 1 million shares held in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to IBIT.
SWIB reported managing over $166 billion in assets at the end of 2024, meaning Bitcoin ETFs accounted for about 0.2% of SWIB's total portfolio before selling them.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi's national investment fund Mubadala purchased an additional 491,439 shares of IBIT in the first quarter, according to the latest 13F filing from this fund.
These purchases increased Mubadala's total IBIT shares to 8,726,972 as of March 31, valued at approximately $512 million at current prices.