Bitwise Interviews 15 Institutions: Every Crypto Holder Owns Bitcoin, None Cut Its Allocation in the Drawdown

On September 23, the asset manager Bitwise published its first report on how large institutions invest in bitcoin and other digital assets. The report rests on 15 interviews conducted between late March and April 2026 with the investment professionals responsible for crypto decisions at endowments, foundations, public pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, multi-family offices, investment consultants and public companies.

The report was written by Matt Hougan, Bitwise's chief investment officer, and Ryan Rasmussen, its head of research. Bitwise manages about 9 billion dollars in client assets and does not name the institutions it interviewed.

What the report found

Bitcoin is in every crypto portfolio. Every institution that holds digital assets holds bitcoin. For nearly all of them it was the first, largest and longest-held position. Several weight a basket of leading assets by market value, which puts about 80% of their holdings in bitcoin. Most hold bitcoin as a standalone position.

Allocations are small. They ranged from 0.5% to 13% of investable assets, with most between 1% and 2%.

No one cut during the drawdown. Bitwise writes that none of the institutions reduced its allocation during the roughly 50% decline between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, and that several bought more. Asked what would make them sell, none named price. The stated triggers were a failed investment thesis, a regulatory reversal or a crisis of credibility across the industry.

Ether and Solana are held differently. Institutions that own them hold smaller positions on shorter horizons, with exit conditions tied to whether usage turns into value for the token. Several said they would sell if meaningful adoption does not arrive in the next few years. Several hold neither.

The more approvers, the smaller the allocation. According to Bitwise, allocation size falls as the number of people who must approve it rises. Family offices reported the highest allocations and sovereign wealth funds the lowest.

Allocations by type of institution

The report breaks its findings down by type of investor. The ranges below are Bitwise's own figures.

Type of institution	Assets managed	Share in digital assets	Vehicles used
Endowments and foundations	0.5 to 75 billion dollars	0.5% to 10%, most 0.5% to 2%	Venture funds, spot ETFs, direct custody, hedge funds
Sovereign wealth funds	1 to 100 billion dollars	1.0% to 1.5%	Hedge funds, venture funds, direct custody, spot ETFs, index funds
Public pension funds	1 to 10 billion dollars	1.5% to 4.5%	Venture funds and hedge funds
Multi-family offices and consultants	1 to 50 billion dollars	0% for nonprofit clients up to 13%, family target 5%	Venture funds, spot ETFs, index funds
Public companies	not stated	1% to 10% of excess cash	Spot ETFs, direct custody

The report is not fully consistent on size. Its methodology section describes the institutions as managing "hundreds of millions to tens of billions of dollars", while the table for sovereign wealth funds extends to 100 billion.

Bitcoin next to gold

Most interviewees described bitcoin as a store of value, often explicitly alongside gold. Several endowments built bitcoin and gold positions in parallel. One institution keeps bitcoin in its gold allocation and told Bitwise: "We could be having this conversation in 10 years and we're telling you we gave up on gold and it's all bitcoin now."

In one case, a sovereign wealth fund is paying for part of its crypto allocation by selling foreign currency and gold reserves. A large endowment whose rules bar it from holding spot commodities, even through an ETF, still describes bitcoin as the digital equivalent of gold. One foundation rejects that framing and treats the whole sector as disruptive technology. How bitcoin and gold compare as stores of value is covered in Bitcoin vs. Gold.

Holdings the filings do not show

Much of what is publicly known about institutional bitcoin holdings comes from Form 13F. Investment managers with discretion over 100 million dollars or more in listed securities must file it with the SEC within 45 days after each quarter. It lists holdings at the end of the quarter, including spot bitcoin ETFs. Bitcoin held directly and stakes in private venture or hedge funds do not appear.

The report points to that gap. One institution said that 13F disclosure of its ETF position creates public visibility it would rather avoid. The public pension funds in the sample hold digital assets only through venture and hedge funds. One sovereign wealth fund is building domestic custody to meet a government requirement for direct control of the underlying assets. Bitwise concludes that estimates of institutional ownership based on 13F filings "should be seen as a floor, not a ceiling." The report does not say which institutions hold what outside the filings.

What public filings show

Where filings exist, they show institutions moving in different directions through the same months.

Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Company held 12,702,323 shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) at the end of 2025 and 14,721,917 shares at the end of March 2026, an increase of 15.9%. The Abu Dhabi Investment Council reported 8,218,712 IBIT shares, worth about 315.8 million dollars, at the end of March.

Harvard's endowment went the other way. It held 6,813,612 IBIT shares at the end of September 2025, 5,353,612 at the end of December and 3,044,612 at the end of March 2026. In the first quarter it also sold its entire position in BlackRock's ether ETF, 3,870,900 shares it had reported three months earlier. At the end of March, Harvard held about 199.8 million dollars in the SPDR Gold Trust and about 117.0 million dollars in IBIT.

Across all 13F filers, CoinShares counted the equivalent of 261,000 BTC at the end of the first quarter of 2026, down 17% from the previous quarter, with endowments down 40%. Harvard does not have to be one of the 15 institutions Bitwise interviewed, so the filings do not contradict the report directly. They show that institutions as a group did not move in one direction.

Two state investors in Europe took first steps before the interviews began. In October 2025, Luxembourg's Intergenerational Sovereign Wealth Fund announced a 1% allocation to bitcoin ETFs. In November 2025, the Czech National Bank created a 1 million dollar test portfolio that includes bitcoin, kept separate from its international reserves.

What large banks have told their clients

The allocations in the report sit close to the ranges that large asset managers and banks have published for their own clients. In December 2024, BlackRock described 1% to 2% as a reasonable range and wrote that such an allocation adds portfolio risk "at levels comparable to a single 'Magnificent 7' stock in a 60/40 portfolio." BlackRock advised against going beyond 2%.

Morgan Stanley's Global Investment Committee followed in October 2025 with up to 4% for its most growth-oriented portfolios, 2% for balanced ones and none for portfolios focused on preserving wealth. Bank of America allowed its advisers to recommend 1% to 4% from January 5, 2026. Vanguard opened its brokerage platform to crypto ETFs in December 2025.

The limits of the report

Fifteen interviews are a small sample. Bitwise does not disclose how the institutions were selected, whether they are its clients or how many fall into each category. Bitwise sells crypto ETFs and index funds to the same kind of investor, a point also raised in trade press coverage of the report.

The report ends with an expectation, not a finding: Bitwise expects a majority of institutional investors to hold digital assets within five years. A larger survey from March 2026, by EY-Parthenon and Coinbase among 351 institutional investors, found that 73% intended to increase their holdings this year and 66% already held spot crypto ETFs or similar products. Coinbase also has a commercial interest in the outcome.

Bitwise names regulatory clarity as the main force that could speed adoption. In the United States, the Senate's attempt at a market structure law failed in September, a story covered in our analysis of the CLARITY Act. Why career risk shapes institutional decisions more than the investment case does is the subject of our essay Fail Conventionally. How Bitwise's chief investment officer framed institutions as the next large buyer after Strategy is examined in Who Buys Bitcoin After Strategy.