Mubadala Investment Company and Al Warda Investments, the well-known investment firms backed by Abu Dhabi, have significantly increased their exposure to Bitcoin during the last quarter of 2025. This occurred during a period of declining market prices.
According to recent 13F filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, both companies have added shares of iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), the spot Bitcoin ETF managed by BlackRock.
Mubadala added nearly four million IBIT shares between October and December, bringing the total to 12.7 million shares. The purchasing came during a quarter in which Bitcoin fell roughly 23%. It showed that the fund was using weakness as an opportunity to accumulate Bitcoin.
Al Warda Investments also increased its exposure, raising its position from 7.96 million shares to 8.2 million shares over the same period.
By the end of 2025, the combined value of the two firms’ IBIT holdings exceeded $1 billion. However, Bitcoin has declined another 23% year-to-date in 2026. As a result, the current value of those combined holdings has fallen to just over $800 million. Here, it is assumed that no additional purchases have been made this year.
A wider institutional trend is highlighted by the disclosures. Large, long-term investors seem to be discreetly accumulating positions through regulated products such as spot ETFs, despite the fact that retail participation has dropped and volatility has lessened.
Since its inception in early 2024, BlackRock’s IBIT has emerged as the leading platform for regulated Bitcoin exposure in the US. Institutions can obtain exposure to Bitcoin through the ETF structure without having to hold or manage the underlying asset directly.
Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, recently addressed concerns that hedge funds using ETFs are driving volatility. He stated that internal observations suggest most IBIT investors are long-term holders rather than short-term traders.
Mubadala and Al Warda’s actions show that sovereign-linked money is not giving up on cryptocurrencies in times of economic depression. Rather, it might be handling volatility as a component of an extended investing cycle.
This behavior is similar to conventional asset allocation techniques in many respects: hold through cycles, accumulate during weakness, and prioritize structural growth over transient noise.
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