• Institutional banking giant Morgan Stanley disclosed a massive position in BlackRock (IBIT), a bitcoin spot fund.

According to a Form 13F filed with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 14, Morgan Stanley reported owning 5,500,626 shares of #BlackRock iShares #MarketDownturn Trust (IBIT) as of June 30. The investment amounted to US$187.8 million at the end of June.

the Investment Discretion note in the document, all shares are allocated to Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc, which is a new position.

This makes Morgan Stanley one of the five largest shareholders in the IBIT fund, Macroscope reported.

In today's 13F filing, Morgan Stanley said it owned 5,500,626 shares of iShares Bitcoin Trust as of June 30 (valued at $187,791,372 as of that date).

the SEC Form 13F is a quarterly report that institutional investors with more than $100 million in assets under management are required to file. The investment bank also disclosed additional investments in other bitcoin ETFs, including #Fidelity , Valkyrie, Bitwise, Invesco Galaxy and ProShares.

Morgan Stanley also disclosed investments of about $148,000 in shares of Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and $1.6 million in Ark 21Shares Bitcoin #ETF (ARKB). Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley reportedly authorized 15,000 financial advisors to recommend bitcoin ETFs to their clients.

In addition to Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs also disclosed bitcoin ETFs in a 13F filing, saying that it has purchased about $418 million worth of several recently launched products for its clients. Most of that amount is accounted for by 7 million shares of IBIT, which was valued at about $238 million as of June 30.

According to Reuters, Goldman is also heavily invested in Fidelity, Invesco Galaxy and several other bitcoin ETFs.

In an August 14 post on X, Bitwise IT director Matt Hougan said institutional investor interest in cryptocurrency ETFs increased in Q2 amid falling asset prices.

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