The State of Wisconsin has sold its entire $350 million stake in a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF).
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The Wisconsin Investment Board, one of the first U.S. state pension funds to invest in cryptocurrencies, exited its entire position in the Bitcoin ETF during the first quarter as the price declined 12%. The Wisconsin board held more than six million shares in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), a position valued at around $350 million.
That stake is now gone, according to the Investment Board’s latest 13-F regulatory filing. The sale happened less than a year after Wisconsin became an early institutional adopter of the newly approved Bitcoin ETFs.
MSTR Stock
In late 2024, the Wisconsin Investment Board doubled its exposure to Bitcoin by raising its IBIT holdings from 2.9 million shares to six million. However, the board’s managers now appear to have had a change of heart.
However, the investment board added indirect exposure to Bitcoin during Q1 via Strategy (MSTR) shares. In the first quarter, it added 26,571 MSTR shares worth $10.5 million. Strategy is a serial Bitcoin acquirer and its stock is often viewed as a proxy for BTC.
Established in 1951, the Wisconsin Investment Board manages over $160 billion in assets, serving Wisconsin state employees through the Wisconsin Retirement System. BTC has risen 9% this year.
Is BTC a Buy?
Most Wall Street firms don’t offer ratings or price targets on Bitcoin, so we’ll look at the cryptocurrency’s three-month performance instead. As one can see in the chart below, the price of BTC has risen 6.99% in the last 12 weeks.
