London-based hedge fund giant Brevan Howard Capital Management has made a radical change to its spot Bitcoin ETF position during the sharp pullback in Bitcoin (BTC) prices in the fourth quarter of 2025.
According to notifications made to US regulators by February 17, the company was the largest seller of shares in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) fund, reducing its holdings by 31.2 million units.
According to Bloomberg data, Brevan Howard’s IBIT position decreased from 36.7 million shares to 5.5 million shares, representing a drop of approximately 86%. The fund’s spot position fell from approximately $2.4 billion to $275 million. The company declined to comment on the matter.
On the other hand, we recently saw Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth funds significantly increase their positions in Bitcoin spot ETFs.
The Company Partially Shifted Its Bitcoin Positions to the Options Market
However, Brevan Howard hasn’t completely exited the Bitcoin market. While the company has reduced its direct spot ETF position, it has replaced a significant portion of it with derivatives.
According to the reports, the fund holds call options worth over $400 million on approximately 8 million IBIT shares and put options worth over $248 million on approximately 5 million shares.
This move indicates that the position is being restructured rather than completely dismantled.
According to James Harris, CEO of digital asset management company Tesseract, this move doesn’t mean a change in perspective towards Bitcoin. Harris noted that Brevan is likely holding his IBIT position as the long leg of his “cash-and-carry” strategy, adding that this strategy is becoming less attractive as the spread between futures and spot prices falls from double-digit levels in 2025 to a range of 3-4%.
*This is not investment advice.