Sovereign wealth funds, family offices accumulating despite price collapse
Institutional investors are aggressively buying Bitcoin at depressed prices, according to John D’Agostino, Coinbase’s head of institutional strategy. Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box on June 8, D’Agostino said sovereign wealth funds and family offices in the Middle East are treating the 50% price decline from Bitcoin’s all-time high near $126,000 as a buying opportunity.
“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.
Bitcoin fell below $60,000 for the first time since October 2024 on June 8, hitting a low of $59,099. Despite the collapse, D’Agostino noted that retail interest has only declined 15%, signaling confidence across both investor tiers. “The price has dropped almost 50% from the peak, and we’ve only seen about a 15% drawdown in retail interest. So I think both retail and institutional are signaling this is a long-term asset you want to hold,” he said.
Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company exemplifies the institutional accumulation trend. The sovereign wealth fund, which manages $330 billion in assets, held 14.7 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust as of March 31, 2026. That represents a 16% quarter-over-quarter increase in holdings across four consecutive quarters of buying.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, which holds roughly $51.9 billion in assets under management and represents 45% of all spot Bitcoin ETF assets, has retained approximately $100 billion in total exposure despite the price drop. The resilience of institutional Bitcoin ETF holdings underscores sustained demand at lower prices.
Michael Saylor’s Strategy also moved to capitalize on weakness. The firm sold 32 bitcoins between May 26 and May 31 for approximately $2.5 million, or roughly $77,135 per coin. The sale represented just 0.004% of Strategy’s 843,000+ BTC holdings and triggered a sharp market reaction that sent Bitcoin below $72,000.
On June 8, Strategy disclosed a purchase of 1,550 additional bitcoins for $101 million, or approximately $65,000 per coin. The transaction underscores the pattern D’Agostino described: institutional buyers treating price weakness as entry points rather than warning signals.
D’Agostino emphasized that institutional clients are not panicking. “On the institutional side, I’m not seeing folks panicking at this point. I’m seeing them thinking about what the cheapest way is for them to acquire new capital to buy into an asset that they loved at $125K, they liked at $100K, and they love even more at $65K,” he said.
The institutional buying activity comes as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee on May 14 with a 15-9 vote, signaling potential regulatory clarity ahead for digital assets.
