Morgan Stanley buys the Bitcoin Dip, Double Its Holdings of Grayscale Bitcoin Shares

28. Sep 2021 Posted by Akolkar B on News

Institutional giants have continued to accelerate their Bitcoin purchases over the last few months. As per the recent SEC filing, banking giant Morgan Stanley doubled its holdings for the shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

The recent filing with the U.S. SEC notes that Morgan Stanley owned 58,116 shares of GBTc worth $371 million as of July 31st. The purchase comes through the Morgan Stanley Europe Opportunity Fund. With the recent purchase, Morgan Stanley has doubled its holdings of GBTC shares and thus the exposure to Bitcoin.

The September 27 filing from the banking giant noted that the recent share purchase costed it $2.4 million. Prior to this, the fund was holding 28,289 shares, worth roughly $1.3 million.

Although the European Fund’s exposure to GBTC has increased, the investment already holds a large number of GBTC across multiple institutional portfolios. The Morgan Stanley Insight Fund has the largest holdings of close to 1 million GBTC shares. This amounts to a total of $31.7 million as of current GBTC share price of $32.14.

Throughout 2021, Morgan Stanley has continued to gain more exposure to bitcoin. Back in April 2021, the investment bank stated that it will be adding Bitcoin exposure to 12 investment funds via Grayscale and other cash-settled futures. Across all these funds, Morgan Stanley currently holds $6.5 million worth of GBTC shares.

Recently, Dennis Lynch, the Head of Counterpoint Global at Morgan Stanley’s Investment Management, called Bitcoin as anti-fragile.He added: “I like to say that Bitcoin is kind of like Kenny from South Park, you know, the guy dies every episode and he’s back again. Owing a little bit of something where things can go right, but also knowing that there are some things that can go wrong is not unreasonable when you have a world that has such disruption occurring, and where these upside scenarios wind up being so large”.

The Grayscale bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has one of the most preferred regulatory products to seek exposure to Bitcoin. JPMorgan is one of the leading institutional banks having exposure to Bitcoin. It is also the second-largest holder of GBTC shares.

The biggest holder of the GBTC shares is Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest holding 8.3 million GBTC shares. In July itself, Ark Invest purchased more than 450,000 BTC in two separate buys.

Some of the other financial giants holding the GBTC shares include Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. This clearly shows that institutional players have been ramping up their supplies for Bitcoin.