Wisconsin's SWIB Boosts Bitcoin Bet to $588M

Wisconsin's investment board, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), has significantly increased its holdings in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) to over 6 million shares, according to a 13F filing on Friday. This marks a substantial increase from the roughly 2.9 million shares held three months prior.

The position, valued at $321 million as of year-end, would be worth about $588 million at bitcoin's current price near $98,000. SWIB first reported a bitcoin ETF purchase in 2021, initially buying 94,562 shares of IBIT and some shares of Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which it later sold. The State of Michigan Retirement System also reported owning shares of bitcoin ETFs, including the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) and two of Grayscale's bitcoin products.

Established in 1951, SWIB oversees more than $156 billion in assets, including funds from the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) and the State Investment Fund (SIF). The board manages investments on behalf of state employees and other trust funds. Today marks the deadline for institutional investors managing at least $100 million in assets to report quarterly holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The market is closely monitoring these filings to gauge whether large traditional finance firms have been adding bitcoin ETFs to their portfolios since their launch last year.