Massive Institutional Bitcoin Buy-Up: Retail Investors Lag Behind with 893K BTC – Decoding the Trend

Key Points

• Institutional ownership in Bitcoin ETFs tripled in Q4 2024, reaching 28% of total assets.
• Experts predict institutional dominance in BTC ETFs could reach 40% by the end of 2025.

In the last quarter, institutional ownership in Bitcoin ETF assets saw a significant increase. Asset manager Bitwise reports that institutions held 28% of Bitcoin ETF assets, valued at $38.7B, at the close of Q4 2024. This is a stark contrast to the $12.4B owned by these entities in Q3 2024, indicating a decrease in retail market share in BTC ETFs.

Projected Growth in Institutional Ownership

Matt Hougan, CIO at Bitwise, predicts that institutional ownership in BTC ETF could rise to 40% by the end of 2025. Bloomberg ETF’s Eric Balchunas supports this projection, suggesting that a 40% institutional dominance in BTC ETF could reflect the gold market share.

Retail offloading of BTC as institutions continue to accumulate further supports these predictions. Data from the crypto trading platform River shows that ETFs, funds, and businesses purchased 893K BTC in 2024. Conversely, the same amount was sold by governments and individuals, with individuals selling 525K BTC last year.

Increased Institutional Interest

As of early 2025, ETF data tracked by SoSo Value shows that U.S. spot ETF products had $114.44B in total net assets. This consistent institutional growth can be linked to the second phase of BTC ETF adoption. Major wirehouses like Morgan Stanley began recommending these products to their risk-tolerant wealthy clients in August of the previous year.

However, it remains uncertain how the continued institutional growth in BTC ETFs will address concerns over centralization. At the time of reporting, the value of BTC was $95.6K, remaining within the $90K-$110K price range.