The United Arab Emirates (UAE) appears bullish on Bitcoin despite its significant decline since October.
At the end of 2025, two Abu Dhabi-based wealth funds held more than $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 owns 12,702,323 shares of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), worth more than $630 million. This was an increase of 46% compared to the previous quarter (Q3), when ownership stood at 8.7 million shares.
Commenting on the update, Juan Leon, Senior Investment Strategist at Bitwise said: said,
“Mubadala sovereign wealth fund doubled the value of BTC during the fourth quarter withdrawal.”
Another UAE entity, Al Warda Investments, a government investment arm, owned 8,218,712 shares of IBIT, worth more than $408 million. This brought total BTC exposure to over $1 billion at the end of last year.
During the same period, the price of BTC fell 30% from $126,000 to $87,000, underscoring the UAE’s belief in cryptocurrencies. For his part, Peter Rizzo, a renowned Bitcoin historian, said: said ‘nations buy the dip.’
Long Exposure in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF Drops 10%
Quarterly (QoQ), institutional property of IBIT fell by only 0.41%, indicating that the companies have changed little and remained in place. However, institutional shares (long positions) and the average portfolio allocation both fell by 10% and 28% respectively.
Source: Fintel
Institutional shares (longs) saw a net reduction of 41.36 million shares between the third and fourth quarters.
Similarly, the average allocation fell by 28%, indicating that companies have reduced their exposure to IBIT, likely due to rebalancing after BTC’s explosive run, profit-taking or risk reduction, among other things.
So while Mubadala and Al Warda Investments doubled their bets on BlackRock’s BTC ETF, some stayed put, only to be scaled back.
However, it is worth noting that the 13F filings do not capture the full picture of the strategies deployed by institutional firms. It only allows publicly traded companies with more than $100 million in holdings to report their long exposure.
But their short position through CME Futures and other platforms, which is not captured in the documents, may provide a different perspective.
Meanwhile, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF assets under management (AUM) have fallen from a record $95 billion to $57 billion as the crypto route deepens. Overall, the AUM of US spot BTC ETFs has fallen from $162 billion to $100 billion.
Source: Het Blok
Final summary
- Mubadala and AI Warda Investment jointly reported holding more than $1 billion worth of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF shares.
- While BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF shareholders saw little change, they reduced exposure by nearly 10%.