Wisconsin Pension Plan May Increase Spot Bitcoin ETF Investments

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) purchased $164 million worth of shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust and Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust in the first quarter, said David Krause, a professor of finance at Marquette University. This investment may be just the beginning, and SWIB is expected to increase its investments further, with other pension plans likely to follow. SWIB has about $156 billion in assets under management at the end of 2023, and Bitcoin ETFs make up 0.1% of its portfolio. Krause sees the investment as a “test run” to gauge the public's reaction to Bitcoin ETFs. = In the first three months of this year, nearly 500 institutional investors allocated to spot bitcoin ETFs, with the largest holder being hedge fund Millennium Management, which held $2 billion, or 3% of its total assets.