Michigan Pension Fund Announces $6.6M Bitcoin ETF Investment

July 27, 2024

Key takeaways:

The State of Michigan Retirement System disclosed holdings in an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that tracks spot prices in Bitcoin and is provided by ARK 21Shares.
At the time of filing, the shares had an estimated value of $6.6 million, which represents a negligible portion of the fund’s billion-dollar worth of assets.

The State of Michigan Retirement System disclosed holdings in an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that tracks spot prices in Bitcoin and is provided by ARK 21Shares.

Michigan’s state pension fund acknowledged holding 110,000 shares of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, ticker code ARKB, in a June 30 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

At the time of filing, the shares had an estimated value of $6.6 million, which represents a negligible portion of the fund’s billion-dollar worth of assets.

According to the petition, Michigan was the third US state to investigate using exchange-traded funds to allocate a portion of its pension fund to cryptocurrency after Bitcoin ETFs were authorized in January.

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board disclosed in May that it has invested $164 million in spot Bitcoin ETFs provided by BlackRock and Grayscale. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop made a suggestion on July 25 that the city’s pension fund might invest 2% of its assets in Bitcoin ETFs.

As of July 25, the net asset value of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, which debuted for listing and trading on the Cboe BZX Exchange in January, was $64.68. This implies that if the Michigan investor held onto its holdings, it might be worth more than $7 million. The fund oversees assets valued at about $3.2 billion.

In order to apply for listing and trading a spot Ether ETF on a US exchange, 21Shares and ARK Invest first partnered, but the latter company terminated the relationship in June. The announcement came after the SEC authorized spot Ether ETFs for the first time in May. As of July 23, BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust and other ETFs will be operational.