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Bitcoin ETF (BTC) Stake Boosted by Wisconsin – CoinDesk

Wisconsin More Than Doubled BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Holdings to 6M Shares

The state’s investment board’s stake is worth more than $340 million at IBIT’s current price of $56.10.

Updated Feb 14, 2025, 6:50 p.m. UTCPublished Feb 14, 2025, 5:55 p.m. UTC

Wisconsin’s investment board saw fit to significantly add to its bitcoin (BTC) bet in the last three months of the year.

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) disclosed ownership of just over 6 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) as of the Dec. 31, per a 13F filing on Friday, up from roughly 2.9 million shares three months prior.

The position is valued at $340 million at IBIT’s current price of $56.10 and would be worth about $588 million at bitcoin’s current price near $98,000.

The fund in 2024 became the first of its kind to report a bitcoin ETF purchase, 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 later also reported owning shares of bitcoin ETFs, the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) and two of Grayscale’s bitcoin products.

SWIB, established in 1951, 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.

UPDATE (Feb. 14, 18:49 UTC): Updates current valuation of State of Wisconsin’s stake in IBIT.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

Helene Braun

Helene is a New York-based news reporter at CoinDesk, covering news about Wall Street, the rise of the spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and updates on crypto exchanges. She is also the co-host of CoinDesk’s Markets Daily show on Spotify and Youtube. Helene is a recent graduate of New York University’s business and economic reporting program and has appeared on CBS News, YahooFinance and Nasdaq TradeTalks. She holds BTC and ETH.

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Helene Braun