Emory University has accumulated Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares worth upward of $15 million, according to an Oct. 25 regulatory filing.
This makes Emory the first college endowment to report holding shares in a BTC ETF, Eric Balchunas, a Bloomberg ETF analyst, said in an Oct. 28 post on the X platform.
Emory holds nearly 2.7 million shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (GBTC) worth nearly $15.1 million at the time of filing, the disclosure shows.
“With that every institution type is now represented in the btc etf 13Fs (endowment, bank, HF, Ins Co, Advisor, Pension, PE, Holding Co, Vc, Trust, Family Office, Brokerage),” Balchunas said, referring to the public disclosures large US investment managers must file quarterly.
The emergence of Bitcoin ETFs in January has helped legitimize BTC as an asset class, sparking widespread adoption among institutional investors.
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The State of Michigan Retirement System reported investments in a spot Bitcoin ETF offered by ARK 21Shares.
The approximate value of the shares at the time of filing was roughly $6.6 million — a small percentage of the fund’s billions of dollars in assets.
Cryptocurrency funds accounted for 13 of the 25 largest ETF launches in 2024 by inflows through August, according to a post on the X platform by Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store — an investment adviser.
Bitcoin has dominated the ETF landscape this year, accounting for six of the top 10 most successful launches in 2024, Geraci said in an X post.
Several Ether (ETH) ETFs launched in July, attracting upward of $1 billion in net inflows to date.
Now, issuers are seeking to register ETFs for other tokens, including Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP).
In July, securities exchange Cboe asked regulators for permission to list VanEck’s and 21Shares’ planned SOL ETFs.
In October, ETF issuers Canary Capital and Bitwise both filed for proposed XRP ETFs.
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