Abu Dhabi's Sovereign Funds Hold Nearly $900M in BlackRock's IBIT
Mubadala Investment Company and ADIC's Al Warda Investments held a combined ~$882M in BlackRock's IBIT at Q1 2026 quarter-end prices, per SEC 13F filings. Mubadala has added shares every single reporting period since Q4 2024.
Mubadala and ADIC have bought every dip, every quarter, in public filings for the world to read.
Key takeaways
- Mubadala Investment Company grew its IBIT position from ~8.7 million shares (Q3 2025) to ~14.7 million shares (Q1 2026), buying through Bitcoin's 23% Q4 2025 drawdown and into further early-2026 price weakness.
- ADIC subsidiary Al Warda Investments held 8.2 million IBIT shares flat in Q1 2026; combined, the two Abu Dhabi entities held roughly $882 million in IBIT at Q1 2026 quarter-end prices, down from over $1 billion at Q4 2025 prices due to Bitcoin's price decline, not selling.
- IBIT is now Mubadala's second-largest 13F-reportable U.S. equity position, behind only its GlobalFoundries stake, in a fund that reported $385 billion in total assets under management as of end-2025.
Abu Dhabi's two largest sovereign vehicles have accumulated nearly $900 million worth of BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, according to SEC 13F filings, with Mubadala Investment Company adding shares in every reporting period since it first disclosed the position in Q4 2024. This is a sustained, vol-indifferent accumulation pattern logged in public regulatory filings.
The combined Q1 2026 position: Mubadala's ~14.7 million IBIT shares valued at approximately $566 million at March 31, 2026 quarter-end, plus Al Warda Investments' 8.2 million shares valued at approximately $315.8 million, totals roughly $882 million. At Q4 2025 prices, the same positions exceeded $1 billion. The dollar value fell between quarters because Bitcoin's price fell, not because either fund sold a single share.
The Accumulation Pattern Is the Signal
Mubadala's share count tells the story more clearly than any dollar figure. The fund held approximately 8.7 million IBIT shares at the end of Q3 2025. It jumped 46% to 12.7 million shares by Q4 2025, a quarter when Bitcoin dropped roughly 23%.
It added again in Q1 2026, reaching ~14.7 million shares as prices remained soft. Three consecutive quarters of additions, through two distinct drawdown periods. That is not a fund testing the water.
The position's size relative to Mubadala's broader portfolio is worth sitting with. IBIT is now the fund's second-largest 13F-reportable U.S. equity holding, per SEC disclosure data cited by coinlaw.io, behind only its stake in GlobalFoundries. A fund that reported $385 billion in assets under management as of end-2025 has decided that a Bitcoin ETF deserves a larger allocation than virtually every other U.S.-listed security it owns.
Al Warda (an Abu Dhabi Investment Council subsidiary within the broader Mubadala group) held its 8.2 million IBIT shares flat in Q1 2026. No additions, but no reductions. The combined position's decline from $1 billion-plus to ~$882 million is entirely mark-to-market.
The UAE's policy environment has made this posture easier to sustain. Abu Dhabi exempted virtual assets and investment fund management from VAT in October 2025. BlackRock secured a commercial license to operate in Abu Dhabi in November 2024. The regulatory infrastructure is aligned.
What the 13F Trail Actually Means
The choice of instrument matters. Mubadala is not holding Bitcoin through a Cayman SPV, a custodied cold-wallet arrangement, or an offshore structure. It is going through IBIT, a regulated U.S. equity security. That means the position clears most sovereign fund charter requirements, sits inside existing risk-management frameworks, and shows up in a quarterly SEC filing that any pension fund CIO, family office consultant, or rival sovereign allocator can pull from EDGAR.
That last point is the compounding mechanism. When a fund reporting $385 billion in assets files IBIT as its second-largest U.S. equity position, every other sovereign allocator's investment committee now has a benchmark comp for what due diligence looks like. Abu Dhabi is buying Bitcoin exposure while doing the institutional legitimization work that lowers the activation energy for the next buyer.
Norway's Norges Bank has also appeared in recent IBIT 13F disclosures as a sovereign holder. UBS disclosed a $90 million IBIT position earlier this year. Goldman Sachs disclosed roughly $1.1 billion in IBIT exposure in its Q4 2025 13F.
The institutional IBIT holder count rose 27% in Q4 2025 alone, from 1,332 to 1,694 filers. Bitcoin ETFs now sit at roughly 70% of GLD's institutional holder count, a product that has been trading for over 20 years. The velocity of that catch-up does not show up in the price chart.
What to Watch
The thesis breaks if Mubadala's Q2 2026 13F (expected around August 2026) shows a meaningful reduction in share count. A mark-to-market decline is irrelevant; an actual share sale would be the first evidence that the accumulation is tactical rather than strategic. Any reversal of the UAE's October 2025 VAT exemption on virtual assets, or any disruption to BlackRock's Abu Dhabi operating license, would also change the policy calculus underwriting this position. Until one of those triggers fires, the public record reads as sovereign conviction, not experimentation.
Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
A 13F is a quarterly disclosure the SEC requires from institutional investment managers with over $100 million in U.S. equity assets. It reveals long positions in U.S.-listed securities, including ETFs like IBIT. It is the paper trail that makes sovereign Bitcoin accumulation publicly verifiable and removes any ambiguity about whether the position is real.
The ETF wrapper makes the position board-legible, auditable, and custody-compliant under existing sovereign fund mandates. Many fund charters restrict direct ownership of non-traditional asset classes. IBIT clears those bars as a regulated U.S. equity security. It is Bitcoin exposure on TradFi rails, which is precisely what makes it replicable by other institutional allocators operating under similar constraints.
Norway's Norges Bank has appeared in recent 13F disclosures as an IBIT holder. Combined with Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and ADIC positions, sovereign fund participation in IBIT now spans multiple nations and multiple quarters of disclosed accumulation.
