Morgan Stanley Has A Bitcoin ETF Worth IDR 2.9 Trillion, Becomes The Fifth Largest Holder

Morgan Stanley has a Bitcoin ETF worth IDR 2.9 trillion (Photo; Doc. Wsj)

JAKARTA - Morgan Stanley, one of the largest investment banks in the world, recently expressed great ownership in the BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). Based on the Form 13F report submitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 14, Morgan Stanley owns 5,500,626 IBIT shares as of June 30, with an investment value of 187.8 million US Dollars (Rp 2.9 trillion). This move makes Morgan Stanley one of the largest holders of the fund.

This position shows that Morgan Stanley is now one of the five largest holders of IBIT, according to a report from MacroScope. All of these shares were allocated to Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc., signaling this to be a new position for the company in the Bitcoin ETF market. Form 13F is a quarterly report that must be submitted by institutional investment managers with assets under a minimum management of 100 million (Rp1.5 trillion). In this report, Morgan Stanley also revealed additional investments in several other Bitcoin ETFs, including products from Fidelity, Valkyrie, Bitwise, Invesco Galaxy, and Proshares.

In addition, Morgan Stanley reported ownership of around US$148,000 (Rp2.3 billion) in Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and US$1.6 million (Rp25 billion) shares in Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB). This move is in line with previous reports that Morgan Stanley has authorized his 15,000 financial advisers to start recommending Bitcoin ETF to clients.

Morgan Stanley is not the only major bank to enter the Bitcoin ETF market. Goldman Sachs, in its 13F report, also revealed that it has acquired around US$418 million (Rp6.5 trillion) in a variety of newly launched Bitcoin ETF products, with most of these investments reflecting the ownership of nearly seven million IBIT shares worth about US$238 million (Rp3.7 trillion) as of June 30. Goldman Sachs also took a large position in Fidelity and Invesco Galaxy, as well as smaller ownership in several other Bitcoin ETFs.

Institutional interest in Bitcoin ETF continued to increase during the second quarter, even when asset prices decreased. Quoted from Crypto Potato, Matt Hougan, CIO Bitwise, in a post on X on August 14, commenting on this trend by saying, Institutional investors continue to adopt Bitcoin ETF on Q2. This trend persists. However, the flow of funds into the Bitcoin spot ETF in the United States is back negative, with an outflow of 81.4 million US Dollars (Rp1.2 trillion) on August 14, according to preliminary data from Farside Investors.

The price of Bitcoin itself is still in the red zone, with a daily drop of 4.7% to 58,000 US Dollars (Rp911 million) at the time of writing. The liquidity heat map also shows the possibility of Bitcoin prices falling further in the near future. After briefly dropping below 50,000 US Dollars (Rp786 million) on August 5, the price of these assets has not shown significant movement and remains stuck in the same range.