Institutional investors poured $38.7 billion into spot Bitcoin ETFs between October and December, up 3.1 times from the previous quarter ($12.4 billion).
The data was provided by Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan. The statistics are based on 13F reports to the SEC.
The quarterly disclosure obligation applies to investors with assets greater than $100 million.
CoinDesk reminded that several hedge funds and pension institutions began buying BTC-ETFs since their launch in January 2024.
In the fourth quarter, the Wisconsin State Investment Board increased its position in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) to over 6 million shares.
Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones' Tudor Investment Corporation increased its holdings of this product from 4.43 million to 8.05 million shares.
Corvex Management increased its holdings of BlackRock's fund to over 1 million shares.
The number of institutional IBIT holders has exceeded 1100, which is a potential record for the first year of an ETF's existence, according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas. Typically, this number does not exceed 10.
There is no way to track it, but I believe the record for the first year was around 350," concluded the expert.
Earlier, Bernstein estimated the influx of investments into BTC-ETFs this year at $60 billion.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink predicted Bitcoin will rise to $700,000, provided that investors of all categories—from retail to institutional—decide to allocate 2% to 5% of their portfolios to the first cryptocurrency.
It should be noted that the Abu Dhabi government-owned Mubadala Investment Company invested $436.9 million in IBIT in the fourth quarter of 2024.