Goldman Bets Big: $1.4B Bitcoin Pivot Signals Wall Street’s Crypto Conversion

Wall Street’s once-skeptical giants are now scrambling for crypto exposure—Goldman Sachs just upped its Bitcoin holdings by 28%, crossing the billion-dollar Rubicon. Here’s why the suits are finally buying the hype.

The backstory: Remember when Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a ’fraud’? Now his competitors are quietly stuffing it into their balance sheets like digital gold bars.

What changed: Institutional FOMO meets regulatory clarity. With BlackRock’s ETF approval and spot trading volumes hitting ATHs, even risk-averse pension funds are dipping toes in the blockchain.

The cynical take: Nothing cures Wall Street’s moral objections faster than 12 months of 150% returns—especially when their ’stable’ bond portfolios are bleeding out.

One thing’s clear: When Goldman starts accumulating, the smart money’s already positioned. The only question left—will they pump it or dump it?

Goldman Sachs Increases Bitcoin ETF Holdings

Goldman’s 30.8 million IBIT shares, as reported in the SEC filing, are a 28% rise from its earlier 24 million-share holding. At current market price, that portion of IBIT is worth over $1.4 billion.

MacroScope initially highlighted the shift. For comparison, competitor hedge fund Brevan Howard owns slightly more than 25 million shares—worth close to $1.4 billion on its own.

Goldman Transitions To BTC

Last December, Goldman had call and put options on IBIT. At the time, it had around $157 million in calls and more than $527 million in puts. It also had $84 million in puts on Fidelity’s FBTC.

Those hedges don’t appear in the current report. Allowing them to expire indicates that Goldman might be transitioning to an easier, direct bet on Bitcoin’s price.

JUST IN: Goldman Sachs just disclosed owning $1.65 BILLION $BTC through bitcoin ETFs – [@MacroScope17] pic.twitter.com/do4VBuhntN

— Bitcoin Archive (@BTC_Archive) May 9, 2025

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust has grown to almost $63 billion in assets managed, Farside Investors data indicate. The fund has amassed around $44 billion in net flows since its inception. This week alone, it received $674 million more. Friday saw IBIT shares increase by $1.04 to close at $58.66, following the top coin’s recovery above $60,000.

Goldman is not the only one. Other heavy-hitters—Jane Street, D.E. Shaw and Symmetry Investments—also maintain significant IBIT positions. And Goldman itself had reported $1.2 billion in IBIT and $288 million in FBTC as of its filing in February.

The transaction indicates that large trading desks and hedge funds are seeking Bitcoin within regulated ETFs, not futures or unregulated exchanges.

Goldman Sachs’s increasing ETF stake is an indicator of increasing bank confidence in Bitcoin as a part of mainstream portfolios. With more than $60 billion stashed in IBIT alone, it’s apparent that spot Bitcoin ETFs have resonated with institutional investors.

Whether other large banks follow and how that influences Bitcoin’s price will be closely monitored in the coming months.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView