Institutional Adoption Report Q1 2026
Institutional ETF Holdings from 13F Filings
Dear Bitcoiners,
Over the past years, we’ve been tracking institutional adoption. Each quarter, I’ve shared the latest Institutional ETF Holdings insights gathered from 13F filings. These filings only include institutions with over $100M in assets under management (AUM) that are required to report, and are therefore a conservative estimate.
The insights from Q1 2026 are just in!
We’ve continuously discussed how ETFs and treasury companies are the gateways for institutions and this cycle’s most important source of demand. The 13F filings are one of the best proxies for understanding these capital flows. Let’s discuss what they reveal!
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Institutional ETF Holdings Q1 2026
Q1 2026 has been the most bearish quarter so far, as we saw the February drop all the way down to a Bitcoin price of $60k. The quarter started at $88,750 and ended at $68,000, a near 23.5% drop in price. Meanwhile, Institutional ETF Holdings dropped from 518k BTC to 493k BTC, a 25k BTC decrease, but less than a 5% drop.
👇 Key insight:
Q1 2026 is the quarter where the realization set in that Bitcoin truly entered a bear market and saw its most bearish momentum. While institutions with >$100M AUM largely held, we still saw a slight reduction of less than 5% in holdings.
We can conclude that institutions were net sellers, though they largely held through the bear market.
Institutional Share of ETF Holdings
The percentage of total U.S. Bitcoin ETF holdings owned by institutions declined by nearly two percentage points.
👇 Key insight:
Q1 2026 saw a slight decline in the institutional share of ETF holdings.
Interestingly, total ETF holdings over the entire quarter remained roughly the same.
This means demand from retail and non-reporting allocators exceeded that of large institutions.
Large capital allocators still hold nearly 38% of total ETF holdings.
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Number of Institutions
👉 Key insight: The most bullish figure from the filings is that during this bear market, and despite the most bearish momentum, the number of institutions reporting Bitcoin holdings increased from 1,975 to 2,003.
New Institutions
While most new firms entering the space are investment managers and hedge funds, and not especially headline-worthy, there are a couple of undeniably bullish developments.
Scotia Bank, one of Canada’s largest banks, is a first-time allocator! Their position isn’t that large, only 121 BTC, around $8 million at the time of purchase.
Mubadala Investment Co, the Abu Dhabi state-owned sovereign wealth fund, increased its position by 1,083 BTC. And a second Abu Dhabi sovereign entity, Abu Dhabi Investment Council (ADIC), which operates under the Mubadala umbrella, now also disclosed a 4,628 BTC allocation. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds continue increasing their exposure to Bitcoin ETFs during this bear market, an incredibly bullish development.
Top 25 Largest ETF Holders
Below are the top 25 largest institutional Bitcoin ETF holders.
👉 Key insight: 16 out of 25 (64%) increased their positions in Q1, including BlackRock, major banks, and the state-owned sovereign wealth funds of Abu Dhabi.
To Conclude
The most important takeaway from this data is that, while institutions largely held, unlike the bull market, demand during this bear market has still been substantially retail-driven. We’ve discussed many times how in comparison to previous cycles, this has been the least retail driven cycle, but this report shows during this bear market retail has been dominating. This report is specifically about institutional ETF holdings. Another source of demand during this bear market has been treasury companies, in particular through digital credit in the form of STRC. Note that demand for products like STRC is also estimated to be 70%–80% retail.
Over the past weeks, we’ve witnessed the rally toward key resistance levels like the STH cost basis, where price currently still finds itself.
While the short-term dynamics are mixed, it’s undeniable that institutional adoption will continue to grow immensely. Even during a bear market, the number of reporting institutions is growing. This shows we are still at the beginning of these gateways, and additionally we have developments around Digital Credit, which are truly incredible!
In the medium to long term, this is an incredibly bullish development. However, in the short term, institutions were still net sellers. This validates having a conservative approach toward the current bullish sentiment and rally.
Again, I am open to a continuation of the bull market depending on how price responds to the current resistance levels, but we haven’t broken entirely through resistance yet. I still think there is a chance of rejecting off these levels and seeing low consolidation for a couple more months.
In the worst case, the next couple of months might show poor performance, but the underlying developments for Bitcoin to grow are here.
Together, we’ll continue to track the institutional and on-chain data, and how Bitcoin performs in the short term.
I am also looking forward to the Q2 data, which should include allocations to the Morgan Stanley ETF. Note that there is a 45-day reporting window, so the next results will only become available by mid-July. I’ll keep you updated! 👊🫡
As always, your thoughts are appreciated. 🧡
-Root