The United Arab Emirates (UAE) appears bullish on Bitcoin, despite the significant drawdown since October.
At the end of 2025, two Abu Dhabi-based wealth funds held over $1 billion in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, according to quarterly 13F filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Mubadala Investment Company, for example, reported owning 12,702,323 shares of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), worth over $630 million. This was a 46% increase from the previous quarter (Q3), when holdings stood at 8.7 million shares.
Commenting on the update, Juan Leon, Bitwise senior investment strategist, said,
“Mubadala sovereign wealth fund doubled down on BTC during the Q4 drawdown.”
Another UAE entity, Al Warda Investments, an investment division of the government, held 8,218,712 shares of IBIT, worth over $408 million. This brought the overall BTC exposure at the end of last year to over $1 billion.
Over the same period, BTC’s price dropped by 30% from $126K to $87K, underscoring the UAE’s conviction in the crypto asset. For his part, Peter Rizzo, a renowned Bitcoin historian, said ‘nations are buying the dip.’
Long exposure in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF drops 10%
On a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis, institutional ownership of IBIT decreased by only 0.41%, indicating it firms barely changed and stayed put. However, institutional shares (long positions) and the average portfolio allocation both dropped by 10% and 28%, respectively.
Institutional shares (longs) saw a net reduction of 41.36 million shares between Q3 and Q4.
Similarly, the average allocation dropped by 28%, suggesting that firms trimmed their exposure to IBIT, likely due to rebalancing after BTC’s explosive run, profit-taking, or risk reduction, among other factors.
So while Mubadala and Al Warda Investments doubled down on BlackRock’s BTC ETF, some stayed but scaled down.
However, it’s worth noting that the 13F filings do not capture the full picture of the strategies institutional firms deploy. It only allows the public firms with over $100 million in holdings to report their long exposure.
But their short exposure via CME Futures and other platforms, which isn’t captured in the filings, may offer a different perspective.
Meanwhile, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF assets under management (AUM) have dropped from a record $95 billion to $57 billion as the crypto rout deepens. Overall, the U.S spot BTC ETFs AUM has dropped from $162 billion to $100 billion.
Final Summary
- Mubadala and AI Warda Investment collectively reported holding over $1 billion worth of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF shares.
- Although BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF shareholders saw little change, they trimmed exposure by nearly 10%.
