Barclays significantly increased its holdings in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF in Q3, while Citigroup newly entered Fidelity's Bitcoin ETF.

BlockBeats news, November 11 - Barclays' latest 13F filing shows that as of September 30, the bank held approximately 3.94 million shares of BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF IBIT, valued at about $187 million, an increase of 48% from 2.66 million shares and $88.5 million as of June 30. Citigroup newly disclosed holdings of about $119 million in Fidelity's spot Bitcoin ETF FBTC, with its IBIT position rising from about 347,000 shares at the end of June to about 521,000 shares, an increase of approximately 50%.

According to Bitwise statistics, among the 1,389 institutions that have submitted third-quarter reports, bank holdings total $258 million, accounting for 4.9% of disclosed spot Bitcoin ETF holdings, up from $107 million and 3.2% in the second quarter. Investment advisors remain the largest holder group, with $3.5 billion in holdings, accounting for 66.6%. Total holdings by these institutions rose from $3.35 billion to $5.25 billion. Early data shows that the proportion of long-term holders among spot Bitcoin ETF investors is rising, and financial advisors at major banks and wealth platforms can now recommend such products to clients. JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and hedge funds Millennium, Schonfeld, and others have not yet submitted reports, with the filing deadline next Monday.

It should be noted that IBIT's price rose about 41% in the third quarter, and an increase in position value does not equate to a corresponding increase in new buying; share changes should be examined instead. The above holdings are as of September 30; since then, Bitcoin's price has declined, and U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, after net inflows of about $6.34 billion in the third quarter, have seen net outflows of about $2.1 billion in the fourth quarter through Tuesday of this week.