The crypto market had a largely tough spell within the first quarter of the yr, with the worth of Bitcoin falling to as little as $62,000 by early February. Whereas a number of institutional traders decreased their publicity because the digital belongings underperformed, others took the downtime as a chance to load up their baggage. Beneath is a take a look at how some institutional gamers allotted (or retrieved) capital from the crypto market within the first quarter of 2026.
Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund Will increase Its IBIT Holdings, Harvard Downsizes
Friday, Could fifteenth, was the deadline for institutional traders and asset managers to reveal their funding holdings as of the tip of 2026’s first quarter. Some of the fascinating disclosures on the day got here from Mubadala Funding Firm, certainly one of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth autos.
In keeping with the Type 13F filed with the USA Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC), the sovereign wealth fund revealed a big improve in its publicity to crypto by means of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Belief (IBIT) exchange-traded fund (ETF). The fund elevated its stake within the largest BTC ETF from 12,702,323 shares beforehand to 14,721,917 shares (value roughly $566 million) as of March thirty first.
Some conventional monetary establishments additionally elevated their crypto publicity whereas hedging their draw back threat. For example, the Royal Financial institution of Canada disclosed including to its IBIT holdings whereas making use of contingent choices (calls and places) to cowl its positions.
The Financial institution of Nova Scotia, one other Canadian establishment, bought 214,370 IBIT shares within the first quarter of the yr. In the meantime, Barclays revealed a layered place within the BlackRock Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, together with giant put and name choices (with the IBIT ETF as underlying).
Curiously, most main college endowment funds (besides Harvard) disclosed no vital modifications of their publicity to the crypto market. Harvard College, which holds one of many largest crypto ETF positions amongst tutorial establishments, has continued to scale back its holdings in BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
After chopping its IBIT place by 21% within the fourth quarter of 2025, Harvard endowment additional decreased its holdings of the IBIT ETF and utterly liquidated its Ether ETF place. The college disclosed 3,044,612 IBIT shares as of March thirty first (value about $117 million), a 43% discount from its 5.35 million-share place on the finish of 2025.
Different Ivy League universities, Brown and Dartmouth, revealed no modifications of their 212,500-share and 201,531-share holdings in BlackRock’s IBIT within the earlier quarter. Nonetheless, Dartmouth disclosed shifting its Ether publicity from the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Belief into Grayscale’s Ethereum Staking ETF, whereas opening a brand new 304,803-share place (valued at $3.67 million) within the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF.
Elevated exercise of institutional traders within the crypto market is commonly seen as validation of the digital asset trade as a complete. Therefore, these disclosures recommend that the large-scale traders might need seen the sooner underperformance of the crypto market as a shopping for alternative relatively than as an indictment of its long-term potential.
Crypto Market Cap Overview
As of this writing, the crypto market capitalization stands at round $2.57 trillion, reflecting an over 1% decline prior to now day. Whereas the market has considerably recovered over the previous two months, it’s nonetheless down by greater than 12% up to now in 2026.
The crypto complete market cap on the every day timeframe | Supply: TOTAL chart on TradingView
Featured picture from iStock, chart from TradingView
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