It sends “a very clear signal” to other institutions that may be sitting on the sidelines and looking at these larger funds as leaders, said MidChains CEO Basil Al Askari.
Sovereign wealth funds have been accumulating spot Bitcoin, a sign that Bitcoin’s current price level is becoming attractive to institutional investors, according to MidChains CEO Basil Al Askari.
While there has been a slowdown in retail crypto market participation, the opposite is being seen on the institutional and corporate side, Basil Al Askari said on Cointelegraph’s “Chain Reaction” podcast on Monday.
“I would be able to confirm that one, at least one, and possibly in the coming weeks, two sovereign wealth funds have been accumulating spot Bitcoin specifically,” he said.
A sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund, typically capitalized by a country’s reserves, so the move signals state-level conviction, not just private speculation. Sovereign wealth funds collectively control more than $13 trillion globally.
Al Askari, who heads MidChains, a regulated crypto trading platform focused on retail and institutions based in Abu Dhabi, said this low price point is seen very much as an “entry level for a lot of those mega funds” that have the patience to accumulate over an extended period of time.
Basil Al Askari speaking on Chain Reaction. Source: Cointelegraph
The potential impact on Bitcoin’s price is not going to be a massive cascade on the market immediately, he said, but it sends “a very clear signal” to other institutions that may be sitting on the sidelines and looking at these larger funds as leaders, seeking a “way to experiment and start to get involved” with Bitcoin.
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“I do think this is what will happen, is that over the longer term period, we'll start to see Bitcoin becoming more and more scarce as a result of larger holders with much longer time horizons on their holding periods as far as looking at investments.”
Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Company invested $437 million in BTC via BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) shares in February 2025, while Bhutan's Druk Holding and Investments is one of the earliest and most direct sovereign holders of the asset, but it has been selling some this year.
ETFs outflow billions as corporates buy the dip
Coinbase’s head of institutional strategy, John D’Agostino, told CNBC earlier this month that the dip is being welcomed by institutional investors.
“I just got off a plane from the Middle East, and I can tell you that the family offices in the UAE and the government and sovereign funds that are putting the effort into buying this asset class are not unhappy at being able to buy it at a discount,” D’Agostino said.
The current situation has been mixed, with sustained US spot BTC exchange-traded fund outflows exceeding $4.1 billion so far this month. Meanwhile, corporate treasuries, primarily Strategy, which has scooped up 3,657 BTC this month, continue to accumulate.
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