iShares Bitcoin Trust Held 801,033 Bitcoin at Third-Quarter End

The iShares Bitcoin Trust held 801,033 Bitcoin (BTC) at Sept. 30 quarter-end, while Strategy held 848,517 BTC on Oct. 25, figures that show large positions but do not measure institutional ownership across the market.

The trust’s holdings were valued at $67,044,294,946 using the Bitcoin price as of 11:59 p.m. ET on Sept. 30. Its net assets were $67,031,315,113. Strategy valued its holdings at $68.90 billion using a Bitcoin price of $81,200 on Oct. 23.

The balances cover different dates and use different valuation points, so they are not a same-time comparison. They also do not show what share of all Bitcoin is held by institutions. The records do not establish whether ownership of the trust’s shares is concentrated among a small number of investors or whether institutional custody has changed control of Bitcoin’s network.

Trust shares represent fractional beneficial interests in the fund’s net assets. Coinbase Custody Trust Company safeguards its Bitcoin, and Anchorage Digital Bank is listed as an additional custodian. The trust’s sponsor said it had no current plans to move Bitcoin to Anchorage.

Satoshi Nakamoto’s 2008 white paper described payments made “without going through a financial institution.” The trust’s structure gives investors exposure through shares in a fund whose Bitcoin is held by custodians. Those arrangements describe how this trust operates; they do not establish a change in network control.

The Securities and Exchange Commission approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded product shares on Jan. 10, 2024. SEC Chair Gary Gensler said at the time, “we did not approve or endorse bitcoin.” TokenPost has previously examined Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer origins and its adoption by ETFs and corporate treasuries.