Wisconsin Pension Fund Buys Bitcoin ETFs
Australia Launches 1st Bitcoin ETF With Direct Holdings, Dapper Labs Settles $4M NFT Lawsuit
Recent SEC filings show The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) added around $160 million in Bitcoin ETFs to the Wisconsin Pension Fund this quarter.
Purchased was $64 million of Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust ETF and $99.2 million of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF. A representative confirmed that the pension fund already had positions in both ETFs as of March 31st — the 13F form has just been released, reporting that.
The community, alongside experts and industry leaders like head of BD at Fidelity Investments' digital assets wing, are saying that other pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and more traditional institutions alike are starting to speak about crypto ETFs with their committees.
Marquette University professor emeritus David Krause was one of the first to comment on Wisconsin's purchases speaking with PBS, saying it's "just a toe in the water" compared to what others might buy in the future, and that it's just a "trial run" that's not going to substantially impact the portfolio (0.1% of total assets).
However, David Krause doesn't expect for underfunded entities to follow suit, saying that Bitcoin's volatility makes it challenging for low liquidity funds.
Bitwise CIO, on the other hand, said that many institutions are making small allocations before scaling up to 1-5% of their portfolios.
The State of Wisconsin Investment Board is in the top ten of the largest pension funds and is worth around $156 billion.
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