UAE sovereign funds hold $764M in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, SEC filings reveal
Two of Abu Dhabi’s most prominent investment vehicles now collectively hold roughly $764 million worth of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF. The latest SEC 13F filings show Mubadala Investment Company and Al Warda Investments, an entity linked to the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, have been quietly stacking shares in what amounts to one of the largest sovereign-adjacent Bitcoin bets on record.
Mubadala alone accounts for 14.7 million IBIT shares valued at approximately $565.6 million as of March 31. Al Warda holds around 8.2 million shares, bringing the combined position to the $764 million figure.
A five-quarter accumulation streak
This isn’t a recent impulse buy. Mubadala first disclosed IBIT exposure of at least $436 million back in Q4 2024, when the spot Bitcoin ETF market was still finding its footing after launching earlier that year. Since then, the sovereign wealth fund has added to its position in every single quarter.
The latest filing shows a 16% increase from the roughly 12.7 million shares Mubadala held at the end of 2025. At the end of 2025, the combined Abu Dhabi holdings in IBIT reportedly exceeded $1 billion before market fluctuations brought the notional value back down. The current $764 million figure reflects Bitcoin’s price movements rather than any wholesale reduction in share count. Mubadala actually increased its position even as dollar values shifted.
Why the ETF wrapper matters
It’s worth noting what these filings don’t show. Neither Mubadala nor Al Warda reported any direct cryptocurrency or token holdings in their 13F disclosures. The entire exposure runs through BlackRock’s regulated ETF product, which handles custody, compliance, and all the operational complexity that tends to make institutional compliance departments break out in hives.
Mubadala Investment Company manages a diversified global portfolio spanning private markets, infrastructure, and technology. The fund’s sustained engagement with a Bitcoin product through a traditional financial instrument, rather than through direct token purchases or DeFi protocols, reflects how the institutional on-ramp to crypto actually works in practice.
The Gulf’s growing crypto appetite
BlackRock’s IBIT has attracted tens of billions in assets since its January 2024 launch, becoming one of the most successful ETF debuts in history. The Mubadala and Al Warda positions represent some of the most notable moves by Gulf institutional investors into US-listed Bitcoin products, with five quarters of consistent buying distinguishing the commitment as a pattern rather than a one-time allocation.
The risk calculus matters too. These are filings from March 31, meaning the positions could have changed since then. 13F filings provide a quarterly snapshot, not a real-time view. The fact that dollar values dropped from over $1 billion to $764 million without triggering a sell-off suggests the allocation is being managed with a long time horizon rather than a trading mentality.
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
You may also like
AI investment enters the "Trough of Disillusionment", the next 18 months will be a life-or-death test!
Goldman Sachs believes that the AI investment cycle is currently in the "trough of disillusionment," but this is not the first time. The core contradiction lies in the fact that the business models of new cloud computing providers are highly dependent on end-user returns from AI spending, while currently "there are basically zero companies that can attribute profits to AI." Social Capital founder Palihapitiya has clearly defined an 18-month key window, during which the market will decide which AI business models are sustainable and which are not.
Anthropic's Core Concern: Revenue Can Be Withdrawn at Any Time, but Computing Power Costs Are Locked in for up to 20 Years
Zheshang Securities believes that Anthropic's revenue is mainly based on usage-based billing, with remaining performance obligations covering only about 5.1 months of annualized revenue, while compute power costs are already locked in with $895.4 billion in irrevocable commitments, some extending as far as 2045. Revenues can be reduced at any time, but costs are non-exitable, creating a highly asymmetric maturity gap between the two—this is the company's real core constraint.
Triple Pressure from the Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Congress; Goldman Sachs: Liquidity Crisis May Occur in 2027
Goldman Sachs warns that the reserve ratio of bank assets has dropped to around 11%, only slightly above the crisis trough of 2019. In the second half of 2027, a deadlock in debt ceiling negotiations will force the Treasury to rebuild the TGA, triggering a "perfect storm" of a sharp drop in reserves and a surge in T-bill supply; combined with stalled money market fund buying, this will create a huge liquidity black hole. The Federal Reserve could be forced into the awkward position of lowering interest rates and launching large-scale bond purchases to rescue the market.
Crypto prices
More
