Key Takeaways

Duquesne no longer reported Intel and Micron and disclosed four new Bitcoin mining positions, while also expanding other technology holdings. Jane Street and UBS reported larger Bitcoin ETF positions, and Tudor added IBIT shares while retaining options exposure. The evidence does not establish a broad rotation out of AI.

Institutional filings offer only partial evidence

Recent filings show professional investors adding exposure to Bitcoin-related assets, but determining whether that money came out of artificial intelligence requires examining both sides of their portfolios. For retail readers, the distinction matters because headlines often frame quarterly filings as definitive proof of a strategy shift, when the underlying documents are far narrower in scope.

The rotation theory has nevertheless gained attention. Arthur Hayes has argued that AI has absorbed capital that might otherwise have reached Bitcoin and Ether. Michael Saylor has described the same pressure as a temporary "suction effect," suggesting that some money could return as AI investments mature and investors redeploy gains. These arguments support the possibility of an AI-to-Bitcoin rotation, but neither argument proves that one has begun.

Form 13F can test only part of that theory. It covers selected long positions in U.S.-listed securities at the end of a quarter but does not disclose every short sale, swap, private investment, offshore position or subsequent trade. Reported holdings can therefore establish exposure without revealing an investor's complete risk or motivation. The disclosures also arrive roughly 45 days after quarter-end, so any position may already have changed by the time the filing becomes public.

Duquesne provides the clearest case of a partial shift

Duquesne Family Office, founded by billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, provides the clearest comparison between reduced semiconductor exposure and new Bitcoin-related holdings. Its first-quarter filing included Intel and Micron, but neither company appeared in its second-quarter disclosure.

Intel and Micron participate in the AI supply chain, although neither is a pure-play AI company. During the quarter in which those holdings disappeared, Duquesne established positions in four publicly traded Bitcoin miners.

Duquesne's reported Q2 portfolio changes

No longer reported: Intel — 411,400 shares; Micron — 23,400 shares.

New mining positions: Bitdeer — 4,074,993 shares; Riot — 754,800 shares; Hut 8 — 314,150 shares; IREN — 87,100 shares.

The filings do not show whether proceeds from the Intel and Micron positions funded the mining investments.

Duquesne also maintained substantial technology exposure. It increased its Amazon holding from 45,800 to 541,600 shares, opened a 336,300-share position in Alphabet and added to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and STMicroelectronics.

The four mining companies further blur the line between Bitcoin and AI. Riot has expanded beyond Bitcoin mining by signing its first data-center lease with AMD and developing infrastructure for AI and high-performance-computing workloads. Hut 8 has commercialized dedicated AI data-center capacity, including a 352-megawatt lease at its Beacon Point campus.

Bitdeer combines Bitcoin mining with an AI cloud operation that reported approximately $69 million in annual recurring revenue and 90% GPU utilization in its May operational update. IREN also combines Bitcoin mining with an AI cloud business built around GPU infrastructure.

Taken together, the holdings place Duquesne between the two investment themes. Its new miners offer exposure to Bitcoin production, but their power capacity and data centers can also serve AI workloads. Combined with the larger Amazon position and new Alphabet holding, the filing looks less like an exit from AI than a move toward businesses exposed to both digital assets and computing demand.

The 13F cannot reveal which part of that overlap attracted Duquesne. The firm may view the miners as undervalued after weakness in crypto-linked equities, expect their expansion into AI and high-performance computing to lift their valuations, or want indirect exposure to a Bitcoin recovery. Those explanations are not mutually exclusive. Future 13F filings — particularly whether Duquesne expands or reduces these positions as Bitcoin prices and AI contracts develop — will provide better evidence of the strategy behind the purchases.

Three institutions reported greater Bitcoin ETF exposure

The filings from Tudor Investment Corporation, Jane Street and UBS add evidence that institutional participation in spot Bitcoin ETFs increased during the second quarter, but they do not show that the positions were financed by sales of AI investments. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, approved by U.S. regulators in January 2024, gave institutions a regulated wrapper for Bitcoin exposure that previously required futures products or direct custody, which helps explain why these vehicles now appear so widely in institutional portfolios.

Changes in share counts are more informative than changes in market value, because an ETF position can become more valuable without the investor buying additional shares. The type of institution also matters: an investment manager, a market maker and a global bank may hold the same ETF for very different reasons.

Tudor's first-quarter filing listed 579,083 common shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust. Its second-quarter filing showed that position rising to 688,529 shares, an increase of approximately 18.9%.

The manager continued to report IBIT options, however. The number of shares underlying its call position fell from 998,000 to 148,000, while its put exposure changed only slightly, from 725,000 to 715,000 underlying shares. The larger common-share holding indicates additional IBIT ownership, but the remaining options make it difficult to treat the portfolio as a simple unhedged Bitcoin bet.

Jane Street's filings require a different interpretation. Its reported quarter-end holdings across IBIT, FBTC, ARKB, BITB and GBTC increased in market value from approximately $438.4 million in Q1 to about $1.01 billion in Q2, according to the firm's official first-quarter filing and second-quarter filing.

Those are market values measured on two reporting dates, so the difference should not be interpreted entirely as new purchases. Jane Street is also a major market maker. Its ETF holdings may support client trading, liquidity provision, arbitrage or hedging rather than express a long-term view on Bitcoin.

UBS's official Q1 disclosure and Q2 disclosure show that its reported IBIT common-share position increased from 364,371 to 407,890 shares, or approximately 11.9%.

The bank also reported a much larger IBIT call position, rising from exposure referencing 80,000 underlying shares in Q1 to approximately 1.95 million in Q2. The filings do not indicate whether the positions served clients, structured products, hedging activity or the bank's own investment strategy.

Indirect exposure is also increasing through listed companies. Strategy recently became the largest holding in Tom Lee's $4.5 billion GRNY ETF, giving the fund exposure to a company whose market value is closely linked to its Bitcoin treasury. The allocation provides another example of Bitcoin-related assets entering major portfolios, although it does not show that GRNY sold AI holdings to fund the position.

Asset managers reduced bearish Bitcoin futures exposure

The second-quarter 13F filings show positions held as of June 30. Commodity Futures Trading Commission reports offer a more recent view of positioning in regulated Bitcoin futures, although they track trader categories rather than the specific institutions named above. The CFTC publishes these commitments-of-traders figures weekly, making them a useful complement to the slower quarterly 13F cycle for anyone tracking how positioning evolves between filings.

The CFTC's June 30 report showed asset managers holding 4,754 long and 2,754 short contracts in CME's standard Bitcoin futures market, producing a net-long position of 2,000 contracts.

By September 1, the latest available report showed 4,837 long and 1,139 short contracts, taking the category's net-long position to 3,698 contracts. Most of that change came from managers reducing short exposure rather than opening substantially more longs.

The category consequently became less bearish on Bitcoin futures after the second quarter, but the data cannot show whether Duquesne, Tudor, Jane Street or UBS held any of those contracts.

Positioning in consolidated Nasdaq-100 futures also remained net long. The asset-manager category's net position increased from approximately 68,195 contracts on June 30 to 72,886 on September 1.

Asset-manager futures positioning — contract totals reported by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Bitcoin and Nasdaq-100 contracts differ in size and risk. Their totals should not be compared as equivalent amounts of invested capital. Nasdaq-100 futures provide a broad comparison with the technology market rather than a direct measure of AI exposure. The figures show that managers reduced bearish Bitcoin positioning without retreating from a major technology-heavy index.

Bitcoin exposure is rising, but an AI exodus is not visible

The disclosures show renewed institutional exposure to Bitcoin ETFs, mining companies and regulated futures. They do not show where every institution sourced that capital or whether the positions represent long-term directional bets.

Duquesne offers the closest evidence of a portfolio shift, but its continued technology investments and the miners' own AI businesses weaken the case for a clean rotation. The available evidence points to selective allocations across Bitcoin and AI rather than a broad withdrawal from one market to fund the other. The next round of quarterly filings, covering the third quarter, will show whether the Bitcoin-related positions grew, held steady or were unwound — the clearest test yet of whether this quarter's moves reflected a durable shift or quarter-specific positioning.

The article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.