Super whales enter the game! Blackstone Group's 'rare' position in Bitcoin draws attention to $1 trillion in managed asset liquidity

The world's largest alternative asset management company, Blackstone Group, revealed that it has purchased slightly over $1 million worth of BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF (IBIT), managing over $1 trillion in assets.

Blackstone Group seems to have finally bet on Bitcoin, but it appears that this investment giant has not yet taken the world's largest cryptocurrency by market value seriously.

Blackstone Group manages over $1 trillion in assets and considers itself the 'world's largest alternative asset management firm.' According to documents released on Tuesday (May 20), the company has only purchased slightly over $1 million worth of BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF.

Although BlackRock's IBIT is currently the most popular ETF tracking Bitcoin prices, Blackstone does not seem ready to invest significant amounts of money in digital assets.

The documents submitted by Blackstone to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday reflected some of the investments managed by the company as of the end of the fiscal quarter on March 30.

According to the filed documents, as of the end of March, Blackstone Group only held $1.08 million worth of BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF.

This seems to be the first time Blackstone Group has reported investing in cryptocurrency-related products on record.

As early as 2019, Blackstone Group co-founder and CEO Stephen Schwarzman admitted that he was not a fan of Bitcoin.

"I'm not very interested in it because it's hard for me to understand," he said at the time.

Looking back to 2019, Schwarzman also expressed concerns about the role cryptocurrency may play in facilitating criminal activities.

"The idea that transactions can occur without anyone knowing could lead to many criminal activities—dirty money, drug money—flowing around the world. This will only encourage such activities," he said at the time.

Despite Bitcoin's strong performance in recent months, currently trading above $100,000 with a market cap exceeding $2 trillion, some investors seem temporarily hesitant to invest in BlackRock's popular Bitcoin spot ETF.

Last week, the Wisconsin Investment Board disclosed in a document that it no longer held $321 million worth of BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF.

Before the news broke that Wisconsin was selling its holdings of IBIT shares, the fund experienced inflows for 20 consecutive days, with BlackRock's fund raising another $5 billion.