At the end of 2025, two of Abu Dhabi’s leading investment firms expanded their Bitcoin exposure to more than $1 billion, scooping up BlackRock’s BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) as the market crashed, according to Tuesday filings.
The sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company increased its stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) by nearly four million shares between October and December, lifting its total holdings to 12.7 million shares, worth roughly $630 millon. The accumulation occurred during a period when Bitcoin declined by roughly 23% over the quarter.
Mubadala initiated its position in IBIT in late 2024 and has continued to build its holdings over subsequent quarters.
According to its latest 13F filing, the fund raised its IBIT holdings by 46% compared with its third-quarter disclosure to the SEC. For the majority of last year, Mubadala maintained a position of around 8 million IBIT shares.
Meanwhile, Al Warda Investments, a government-backed investment entity, disclosed ownership of 8,218,712 shares (worth approximately $407 million), up slightly from 7.96 million shares three months earlier.
BlackRock’s IBIT, which debuted in January 2024, remains the world’s largest Bitcoin ETF, overseeing roughly $57 billion in assets under management. However, the fund’s valuation has come under pressure as the price of the flagship crypto has retreated significantly in recent months, reflecting the broader downturn across digital asset markets.
The disclosures by Mubadala and Al Warda Investments signal increasing institutional appetite for spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Still, while the Abu Dhabi funds were increasing their exposure to Bitcoin, others cut their exposure in Q4 2025. Brevan Howard trimmed its IBIT holdings by roughly 85% from 37 million shares ($2.4 billion) in Q3 2025 to around 5.5 million shares ($273.5 million) in Q4.
Additionally, Harvard University reduced its stake in the BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF by 1.46 million shares, as ZyCrypto reported earlier. The Ivy League university, however, increased its exposure to other digital assets, establishing an $86.8 million position in BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF, ETHA.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/abu-dhabi-wealth-funds-boosted-bitcoin-etf-holdings-to-over-1-billion-at-the-end-of-2025/
