Goldman Sachs reveals $418m bet on Bitcoin ETFs

Leading global investment banking firm Goldman Sachs has disclosed it holds $418 million in several Bitcoin-related exchange-traded funds.

The revelation came through Goldman Sachs’ latest 13F filing for the second quarter of 2024, released on Aug. 14. According to the filing, the investment bank holds nearly 7 million shares worth more than $238 million in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin (BTC) Trust. 

It also holds 1.5 million shares of the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin ETF, currently worth almost $80 million, as well as 940,443 Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF shares with a market value of $56.19 million.

Other smaller positions include an $8.3 million holding in the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, about $750,000 in WisdomTree’s BTCW ETF, and almost $300,000 in ARK 21Share’s ARKB ETF.

What makes Goldman’s disclosure interesting is that, for a long time, several of its C-suite executives have held a hard stance against crypto. For instance, as recently as April 2024, the investment giant’s chief investment officer, Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, stated that she did not consider crypto an investment asset class, adding that Goldman Sachs were “not believers in crypto.”

However, with crypto ETFs making it possible for investors to get exposure to the assets without directly owning them, many traditional financial institutions have warmed up to the sector, with the latest data from Coinglass showing that Bitcoin ETFs currently have a total market cap of $57.39 billion and total assets under management with a value of $48.74 billion.

According to ETF Prime host Nate Geraci, BlackRock’s IBIT ETF has registered more than $20 billion in cumulative inflows since its launch in January 2024. 

The net inflows have been boosted, with more than 600 institutional investors reportedly allocating portions of their funds to the crypto ETFs. In a 2023 interview with FOX Business, Goldman Sachs’ head of digital assets admitted that the approval of spot crypto ETFs would improve liquidity and open the floodgates for pension funds and similar financial institutions to invest in crypto. To that end, the likes of the State of Michigan Retirement System recently revealed that it had invested $6.6 million in ARK 21Share’s spot BTC ETF.