Two Abu Dhabi sovereign buyers saved their BlackRock Bitcoin ETF holdings unchanged by means of the second quarter, retaining $764 million of publicity even because the cryptocurrency remained mired in certainly one of its steepest annual declines.
Mubadala Funding Firm and the Abu Dhabi Funding Council held a mixed 22.94 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Belief ETF (IBIT) as of June 30, regulatory filings present.
Neither decreased its share depend in the course of the quarter.
The choice meant the funds absorbed the decline in IBIT. Their mixed positions had been valued at about $881.4 million on the finish of March, implying roughly $118 million of worth was erased in the course of the second quarter though the variety of shares remained unchanged. Mubadala’s stake alone fell in reported worth to $490.1 million from $565.6 million.
Mubadala held 14,721,917 IBIT shares as of June 30, the identical quantity it owned three months earlier. The place remained its second-largest reported holding in its $34.8 billion 13F portfolio, behind GlobalFoundries.
The sovereign investor had elevated its place by nearly 16% in the course of the first quarter, including greater than 2 million shares as Bitcoin weakened. It had beforehand boosted the stake by about 46% within the closing quarter of 2025.
Abu Dhabi Funding Council (ADIC) additionally stood pat, retaining 8,218,712 IBIT shares value about $273.6 million as of June 30. IBIT was its largest reported US-listed place, accounting for over 33% of its roughly $715 million 13F portfolio.
ADIC started reporting the place instantly earlier this yr after its subsidiary Al Warda Investments had beforehand disclosed the stake. The reporting change didn’t alter the helpful possession of the shares.
Bitcoin slides
The unchanged positions stand out in opposition to Bitcoin’s efficiency this yr.
Bitcoin traded close to $62,900 on Friday, down about 29% from roughly $88,700 firstly of 2026. The cryptocurrency has additionally fallen by roughly half from the report above $126,000 reached final October.
BlackRock information present IBIT was down 27.6% this yr by means of Aug. 13, with web property falling to about $47.35 billion. Its shares closed at $35.88 Thursday.
The broader ETF market displays this retreat, with Bitcoin ETFs shedding round $40 billion in property underneath administration, from greater than $116.7 billion to round $95.5 billion, in accordance with information from SoSoValue.
Meaning the Abu Dhabi buyers have up to now responded in a different way from establishments which have used the downturn to chop publicity.
Harvard College, for instance, decreased its IBIT place by 43% in the course of the first quarter after already trimming it late final yr. Mubadala elevated its holdings throughout that very same interval, whereas ADIC saved its stake unchanged.
Michael Tanguma, chief government of Onramp Bitcoin, stated Abu Dhabi might also maintain Bitcoin instantly in chilly storage, arguing that relying solely on an ETF construction can be uncommon for a sovereign investor in search of long-term publicity.
Kind 13F disclosures cowl specified US-listed securities and wouldn’t reveal Bitcoin held instantly in sovereign-controlled wallets, that means the filings neither affirm nor rule out Tanguma’s assertion.
Abu Dhabi deepens its crypto push
These funds’ choice to keep up their Bitcoin positions comes as Abu Dhabi builds a broader institutional presence throughout digital property, spanning regulation, enterprise funding, tokenization and crypto infrastructure.
Abu Dhabi International Market, the emirate’s worldwide monetary heart, has operated a devoted virtual-asset regulatory framework since 2018 and stated late final yr that greater than 20 regulated corporations had been licensed to conduct actions involving digital property or fiat-referenced tokens.
Binance acquired a world license underneath the framework in December, whereas Coinbase secured regulatory approval this week to ascertain a global tokenization hub in Abu Dhabi.
State-linked capital has moved alongside that regulatory enlargement. Abu Dhabi-backed MGX agreed final yr to take a position $2 billion in Binance, one of many largest institutional investments ever made in a crypto firm.
Individually, Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s government-backed expertise ecosystem, established a devoted digital-assets program with greater than $2 billion of capital dedicated to Web3 and blockchain startups.
Mubadala itself has additionally expanded past merely proudly owning Bitcoin by means of an ETF. Its asset-management arm, Mubadala Capital, moved certainly one of its private-market funds onchain in July, making the technique out there in tokenized type throughout Base, Solana and Sui.
These initiatives present an Abu Dhabi funding technique that has more and more handled digital property as a part of its monetary infrastructure reasonably than solely as a speculative commerce.
