The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), one of the first U.S. state pension funds to invest in a spot bitcoin BTC exchange-traded fund, exited its position entirely in the first quarter as the price of the largest cryptocurrency fell about 12%.
At end of 2024, the board held more than 6 million shares in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), a position valued at around $350 million based on recent prices. That stake is now gone, according to its latest 13F filing.
The offload occurred less than a year after Wisconsin made headlines as an early institutional adopter of the newly approved crypto investment vehicles and stands in contrast to the board’s activity just months earlier. In late 2024, SWIB more than doubled its exposure to bitcoin by raising its IBIT holdings from about 2.9 million to over 6 million shares.
The board added indirect exposure to bitcoin via Strategy (MSTR) shares. In the first quarter it added 26,571 MSTR shares, worth around $10.5 million.
Established in 1951, SWIB manages over $160 billion in assets, serving Wisconsin state employees through the Wisconsin Retirement System and other funds.
In contrast, Mubadala Investments, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, increased its stake in BlackRock’s IBIT in the first quarter of the year. The fund, its latest 13F shows, added in a little over 490,000 shares valued at around $29 million.
Bitcoin has risen 27% to trade near $103,750 since the end of the quarter.