The Abu Dhabi Funding Council (ADIC) expanded its publicity to Bitcoin forward of the cryptocurrency’s sharp downturn, greater than tripling its stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Belief (IBIT) throughout the third quarter, regulatory filings present.
ADIC — an independently run funding unit inside Mubadala Funding Co. — elevated its holdings to just about 8 million IBIT shares as of Sept. 30.
The place was valued at about $518 million on the time, up from 2.4 million shares three months earlier, based on Bloomberg reporting.
The buildup by the Abu Dhabi council got here simply weeks earlier than Bitcoin surged to a file excessive in early October after which slid under $92,000 as leveraged bets unwound throughout the market.
The Abu Dhabi council says the transfer is a part of a broader, long-term diversification technique. A spokesperson described Bitcoin as a digital counterpart to gold and mentioned the allocation is meant to sit down alongside the fund’s conventional store-of-value belongings.
The shopping for wasn’t remoted. Mubadala individually reported holding 8.7 million IBIT shares valued at $567 million on the finish of the third quarter, unchanged from the prior submitting.
Different main establishments, together with Harvard, additionally added to IBIT positions in the identical interval.
Nonetheless, investor urge for food has cooled because the October selloff. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen roughly $3.1 billion in outflows to this point in November, based on Bloomberg information.
IBIT alone suffered a single-day file of $523 million in redemptions after Bitcoin broke under a key worth stage that left many ETF traders underwater.
Abu Dhabi’s bitcoin strikes
ADIC’s elevated allocation is notable given Abu Dhabi’s monetary attain and its rising ambition to ascertain itself as a worldwide crypto hub. The emirate’s wealth funds collectively oversee greater than $1.7 trillion, and Mubadala has already been a significant participant within the area’s digital-asset enlargement.
Earlier this yr, MGX — a tech funding agency backed by Mubadala — acquired a $2 billion stake in Binance utilizing a stablecoin tied to the household of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Inside ADIC, the push into Bitcoin aligns with a broader shift towards international enlargement. The council, initially created in 2007 and later folded beneath Mubadala’s construction, continues to function with its personal mandate and funding technique.
It has lately strengthened its management group, including executives comparable to Alain Service, former head of worldwide enterprise at Canada Pension Plan Funding Board, and Ben Samild, beforehand the funding chief at Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, based on Bloomberg.
Whereas crypto’s volatility stays a priority for international traders, Abu Dhabi’s stance underscores a unique calculus: massive sovereign funds are more and more comfy treating Bitcoin as a long-term strategic asset.
Different governments are transferring in the identical course. El Salvador added greater than $100 million in Bitcoin this week, the Czech central financial institution disclosed its first crypto buy, and Kazakhstan is constructing a nationwide cryptocurrency reserve fund that would attain $1 billion.
Bitcoin’s worth is presently on the $90,300 vary.
