Key Points
- Institutional ownership in Bitcoin ETF assets saw a threefold increase in Q4 2024.
- Professional investors now own 28% of Bitcoin ETF assets, a figure projected to reach 40% by the end of 2025.
In Q4 2024, institutional ownership in Bitcoin ETF assets increased significantly, tripling in value.
According to Bitwise, an asset management firm, institutions owned 28% of Bitcoin ETF assets. This was equivalent to $38.7B as of the last quarter of 2024.
Institutional Ownership Growth
In comparison, institutional investors only owned $12.4B in Q3 2024. This indicates a declining trend in retail market share in Bitcoin ETFs.
Matt Hougan, CIO at Bitwise, predicts that institutional ownership in Bitcoin ETF could rise to 40% by the end of 2025.
Eric Balchunas of Bloomberg ETF supports Hougan’s projection. He noted that a 40% institutional dominance in Bitcoin ETF could mirror the gold market share.
Bitcoin vs. Gold
The increase in institutional stacking of Bitcoin while retail offloads further supports these projections. According to the crypto trading platform River, ETFs, funds, and businesses acquired 893K Bitcoin in 2024.
In contrast, governments and individuals sold the same amount of Bitcoin. Specifically, individuals sold 525K Bitcoin last year.
The continued growth of institutional investment in Bitcoin ETFs can be attributed to the second phase of Bitcoin ETF adoption. This started when wirehouses like Morgan Stanley began recommending these products to their risk-tolerant wealthy clients in August last year.
However, it’s still unclear how the continued institutional growth in Bitcoin ETFs will be reconciled with centralization concerns.
As of the time of writing, Bitcoin was priced at $95.6K and was still within the $90K-$110K price range.
