Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, managed by Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), has increased its indirect exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) through investments in cryptocurrency-related companies.
According to K33 Research, the fund’s Bitcoin exposure reached 3,821 BTC, valued at approximately $356 million by the end of 2024, marking a 153% increase over the year.
Moreover, the report shows fund’s exposure grew by 1,375 BTC between June and December 2024. Vetle Lunde, K33 Research’s head, noted that this increase was likely due to rule-based sector weighting rather than a strategic decision to prioritize Bitcoin. He described it as an example of how BTC is “increasingly becoming part of diversified investment portfolios”:
NBIM’s indirect exposure is one of the strongest examples of how BTC is slipping into any well-diversified portfolio, and the growth is a testament to the market maturing and BTC ending up in any well-diversified portfolio, intended or not.
The fund’s indirect Bitcoin exposure comes from a $500 million stake in MicroStrategy, as well as investments in cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and BTC mining firms Mara Holdings and Riot Platforms.
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, recorded $222 billion in profits in 2024, achieving a second consecutive year of record gains. NBIM’s CEO, Nicolai Tangen, told Ruters that he credits the strong performance to major gains in the technology sector.
NBIM holds 0.72% of the MicroStrategy’s shares, valued at $514 million as of December 31, 2024. This equates to an exposure of 3,214 BTC. While its ownership percentage in MicroStrategy declined from 0.89% in June 2024, the actual number of shares it held increased from approximately 1.12 million to 1.58 million over the same period, as per data from Yahoo Finance.
Lunde had expected a more significant decrease in NBIM’s MicroStrategy stake due to the company’s “21/21 plan,” which aimed to raise $42 billion in capital through equity and fixed-income offerings for additional BTC purchases, potentially diluting the total number of shares outstanding.
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Other major sources of NBIM’s indirect BTC exposure include its holdings in MARA (0.71% of shares, equating to 315 BTC), Tesla (1.1% of shares, 106.9 BTC), Coinbase (0.85% of shares, 80.6 BTC), and Riot Platforms (0.44% of shares, 76.7 BTC).
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