Al Warda Investments, an investment firm overseen by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council (ADIC), more than tripled its holdings of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) in the third quarter as bitcoin heading for October’s record high.
The 230% increase took its investment to just under 8 million shares worth $517.6 million, the firm said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Abu Dhabi Investment Council is a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Co., one of the emirate’s primary sovereign wealth groups. The publication provides insight into the council’s approach to digital assets, as it typically focuses on private market strategies such as buyouts, infrastructure and real estate.
“We see bitcoin as a store of value similar to gold, and as the world continues to move towards a more digital future, we see bitcoin playing an increasingly important role alongside gold,” an ADIC spokesperson told Bloomberg. “Both assets help diversify our portfolio and we expect to retain them as part of our near- and long-term strategy.”
The move, which occurred just before bitcoin hit an all-time high near $126,000 in early October and then slipped below $90,000 in November, adds to a growing wave of institutional interest. Harvard’s endowment recently disclosed a $443 million position in the same ETF, an allocation equal to about 20% of its reported U.S. publicly traded equity holdings.
The 30% drop in bitcoin’s price from its peak has hit interest in exchange-traded funds. On November 18, IBIT saw its largest single-day outflow since the product was launched in January 2024. On Wednesday, it recorded the first net inflow since November 11.
