Barclays Bank has $131 million in ETF on Bitcoin

Yesterday, Barclays Bank, with a filing with the SEC, revealed that it holds investments in Bitcoin ETFs for 131 million dollars.

According to the documentation submitted to the American agency, the bank based in the United Kingdom held 2,473,064 IBIT shares, the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF stock, as of December 31. 

Barclays and Bitcoin spot ETFs

Although Barclays has already taken initiatives related to the crypto sector in the past, as far as it was known, it had never invested in criptovalute.

Instead, at the end of 2024, probably driven by the rise in the value of BTC triggered by Donald Trump’s electoral victory, it decided to expose itself. 

He did not do it by directly purchasing BTC, but by buying a regulated asset like IBIT on the regulated market. In fact, he still took a position on Bitcoin, even though he chose not to hold the BTC directly.

The other banking institutions

Before Barclays, other banking institutions had already chosen to take a position on Bitcoin. 

This is a real trend concerning the institutional adoption of cryptocurrency-related products, even though it is a trend still in its early stages and for now with decidedly low volumes, as it involves large financial institutions. 

In addition to Barclays, for example, among other large banking institutions, the positions on Bitcoin opened by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are well known. 

Curious that they entered right when the price of Bitcoin was heading towards new all-time highs, and not for example in the previous months when the price was well below $70,000.

The fact remains, however, that the major investors have still decided to seize the opportunity to capitalize on the increase in value of Bitcoin, even if they have chosen not to directly own the BTC.

Goldman Sachs has recorded a 121% increase in its investments in Bitcoin ETFs, bringing its total position to as much as 1.57 billion dollars.

JPMorgan has also recently indicated an increase in its exposure to BTC, even though its position does not even reach a million.

So the exception is Goldman Sachs, which states it has open positions in various Bitcoin ETFs, increasing by as much as 121% compared to the third quarter of 2024. However, in this case, the bulk is made up of IBIT shares. 

ETFs and Bitcoin

As can be clearly understood, it was precisely the ETFs that allowed these banking institutions to take a position on Bitcoin. 

On the other hand, in the month of January 2025 alone, the U.S. Bitcoin ETFs recorded a total inflow of 5 billion dollars. According to a forecast by Farside Investors, the total inflows in 2025 could even exceed 50 billion. 

The main protagonist of this market is precisely IBIT by BlackRock, with a remarkable 3.2 billion dollars of net inflows in the month of January alone. In second position is FBTC by Fidelity with 1.3 billion.

Institutional Investors and Bitcoin

To tell the truth, institutional investors have been interested in Bitcoin for years now. 

However, until January 2024, they struggled to find legal methods to purchase and hold BTC. With spot ETFs, they found the definitive solution. 

For this reason, the interest of institutional investors in Bitcoin is continuously growing, with a significant increase in investments and adoption in the very recent years.

In fact, nowadays sometimes it is the same asset managers like BlackRock that offer their clients the opportunity to invest indirectly in BTC thanks to their ETFs. 

The fact is that Bitcoin tends to be uncorrelated, or relatively little correlated, with the trend of traditional markets, thus offering an opportunity for portfolio diversification. Furthermore, it can allow for significant returns with limited investments, at least in theory. 

The main problem for institutional investors is precisely the regulation, more than the volatility, particularly concerning regulatory uncertainty in the USA. This suggests that while on one hand, there are already many banking institutions that have started to take an interest in BTC, there could still be many that have not decided to expose themselves.