Al Warda Investments, an investment vehicle overseen by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council (ADIC), more than tripled its holdings in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) in the third quarter in the form of bitcoin. heading towards October record.
The 230% increase brought its investment to just under 8 million shares valued at $517.6 million, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Abu Dhabi Investment Council is a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Co., one of the emirate’s leading sovereign groups. The disclosure provides insight into the advisory’s approach to digital assets, as it typically focuses on private market strategies such as buyouts, infrastructure and real estate.
“We view Bitcoin as a store of value similar to gold, and as the world continues to move toward a more digital future, we see Bitcoin playing an increasingly important role alongside gold,” an ADIC spokesperson told Bloomberg. “These two assets help diversify our portfolio and we plan to retain them as part of our short- and long-term strategy.”
The move, coming just before bitcoin hit a record high near $126,000 in early October and then fell below $90,000 in November, adds to a growing wave of institutional interest. Harvard’s endowment recently disclosed a $443 million position in the same ETF, an allocation equivalent to about 20% of its U.S. publicly traded stock holdings.
The 30% drop in bitcoin’s price since its peak has damaged interest in exchange-traded funds. On November 18, IBIT saw its largest single-day outflow since the product launched in January 2024. On Wednesday, it saw the first net inflow since November 11.
