Key Takeaways

• Goldman Sachs held $418.65 million in spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as of June 30, an SEC filing showed.

• The majority of these holdings are in the shares of BlackRock's IBIT fund.

• Previously, multiple executives from Goldman Sachs have shared skepticism about investing in bitcoin and cryptocurrency assets.

Goldman Sachs (GS), a traditional Wall Street firm considered a bitcoin skeptic, has disclosed a surprising investment in a recent regulatory filing—shares of spot bitcoin (BTCUSD) exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Among other holdings, Goldman Sachs reported holding shares in seven out of 11 U.S.-based bitcoin ETFs, holding a total value of approximately $418.65 million in these assets as of June 30, according to a 13F filing made Tuesday.

It is unclear if these holdings were accumulated at the direction of private clients. Attempts to reach Goldman Sachs for comment were unsuccessful.

Goldman's Bitcoin ETF Exposure

The largest spot bitcoin ETF position in the Goldman Sachs filing was nearly 7 million shares in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), valued at $238.6 million. About 1.5 million shares of Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin ETF (FBTC) and roughly 940,000 shares of Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF (BTCO) round out the top three bitcoin ETF investment disclosures by the investment bank.

The company also held shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) , WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund (BTCW), and Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF.

To be sure, 13F filings should be read with some caution. They only show holdings and their value as of the reporting date, June 30 in this case, and offer no indication of any transactions made since. They also don't disclose any short positions, which may not provide the complete picture about an institutional manager's overall investment strategy.

This filing comes a few days after Morgan Stanley (MS) made headlines for allowing its advisors to pitch bitcoin ETF investments to clients on an unsolicited basis. That was a big move for a traditional wirehouse that typically had shied away from openly offering such products to clients.

Goldman's Been Wary of Bitcoin

In the past, top Goldman Sachs executives have been skeptical about the investment case for bitcoin.

In April, Goldman Sachs Wealth Management Group Chief Investment Officer Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani expressed skepticism about crypto as an asset class in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

More recently, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told CNBC that bitcoin could very well act as a store of value, similar to gold; and that he believes there may be value in the technology behind it to better the financial systems, but that's "that’s different in speculating whether Bitcoin is going to be $70,000, $30,000, or $120,000."

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