BlackRock’s Strategic Income Opportunities Portfolio, one of the firm’s own domestic mutual funds, has increased its exposure to Bitcoin through an additional purchase of the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to the latest SEC filing.
A new filing shows the portfolio held 2,397,423 IBIT shares worth $155.8 million as of Sept. 30, up 14% from the 2,096,447 shares reported at the end of June.
The fund is an unrestricted bond portfolio that moves across assets such as government debt, corporate credit, mortgages, emerging markets and cash, while its flexible mandate allows it to add non-traditional holdings such as ETFs when they support its total return and diversification goals. It is this structure that enables the fund to incorporate IBIT with its fixed income mix.
IBIT has also been in the headlines this week after Nasdaq ISE filed to increase the position limits for IBIT options to one million contracts.
Fintel data shows that institutional ownership of IBIT has been steadily increasing month over month, now at its highest level since launch with over 400,000,000 shares in total institutional ownership.
Bitcoin (BTC) surged above $91,000 on Friday, and IBIT is up nearly 2% in premarket trading at around $52 a share.
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