Hedge funds cut Bitcoin, brokerages load up in Q2: CoinShares report
Professional investors increased their Bitcoin holdings in second-quarter, even as overall U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF holdings declined, according to a CoinShares report published Friday.13F filers held 264K BTC at the end of June, up 1.3% from 261K tokens in the first-quarter. Meanwhile, total U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF holdings fell 6.3%, and non-13F holders reduced their exposure by 8.3%.The dollar value of 13F filers’ holdings fell 13% to $15.5B as Bitcoin’s price declined 14% during the quarter. However, their share of total U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF AUM rose to 22.4% from 20.8%, marking the first increase since second-quarter 2025.Hedge funds cut exposure as brokerages buyHedge funds recorded the largest reduction, cutting their Bitcoin exposure by 10.8K coins (22%) to 37.8K BTC.DE Shaw exited its 3.7K BTC position, while Millennium Management reduced its holdings from 14.4K BTC to 7.3K BTC.Investment advisors also trimmed exposure, reducing holdings by 4.6K BTC, or 3%, to 145.7K BTC. Brevan Howard cut its position by 9.6K BTC to 4.1K BTC.The advisors nevertheless accounted for roughly 55% of all reported 13F Bitcoin holdings.At the same time, brokerage holdings more than doubled to 38.5K BTC from 17K BTC. Jane Street added 10.9K BTC to reach 16.9K BTC, while Morgan Stanley held 10.4K BTC. However, Morgan Stanley’s Q1 filing was excluded from the earlier comparison, partly affecting the increase.Bank of Montreal and VanEck Associates each added roughly 2.6K BTC.Other notable sellers included Avenir Tech, which reduced its position by 2.8K BTC, SIG Holding, which cut 2.4K BTC, and IMC-Chicago, which reduced its holdings by 2.3K BTC.Government and university endowment holdings remained broadly unchanged, while private-equity exposure rose 5% to 6.9K BTC.Now, the third-quarter filings will show whether brokerage buying continues and whether professional investors maintain their Bitcoin exposure following the second-quarter decline.Content provided by Seeking Alpha is intended for information purposes only, and that Seeking Alpha does not offer any personalist investment advice and is not a licensed securities dealer, broker, US investment adviser or investment bank.