Morgan Stanley, a major American financial firm, has more than doubled its holdings in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust by more than 105% since April.
The Morgan Stanley Europe Opportunity Fund, which invests in known and growing firms throughout Europe, owned 58,116 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, or GBTC, as of July 31, according to a report filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC.
The price of GBTC is $34.28 at the time of publication, putting the investment bank’s exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) at around $2 million — Morgan Stanley said that the shares cost $2.4 million.
Morgan Stanley has boosted its holdings in GBTC by more than 105 percent since April, according to previous filings. According to Cointelegraph, the investment bank possessed 28,298 GBTC, valued at $1.3 million at the time.
Morgan Stanley is increasing its exposure to Bitcoin Cash (BTC) in 2021. The firm’s Europe Opportunity Fund seeks to maximize capital appreciation by investing in “high quality established and emerging” European companies that the team believes are “undervalued at the time of purchase.”
The investment bank said in April that Grayscale and cash-settled futures would be used to increase Bitcoin exposure to 12 investment vehicles.
Morgan Stanley went on to lead a $48 million funding round for Securitize, a Coinbase-backed tokenization platform, marking the bank’s first financial investment in blockchain.
Cathie Wood, the CEO of Ark Invest, has also made a major investment in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. The company said in July that it had purchased over 450,000 GBTC shares in two separate transactions.
Ark Invest and its institutional funds had more than 8.3 million GBTC shares at the time of publication, accounting for 0.69 percent of its portfolio.
