At least one sovereign wealth fund sells gold to buy Bitcoin, Bitwise reports

At least one sovereign wealth fund has been selling gold and foreign exchange reserves to fund Bitcoin purchases, according to Bitwise Asset Management’s first Institutional Crypto Adoption Report. The finding, disclosed by Bitwise Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen on September 29, represents one of the clearest examples yet of a nation-state investment vehicle treating Bitcoin as a direct substitute for traditional reserve assets. The report is based on interviews with senior investment professionals across 15 large institutions conducted between March and April 2026. Its most striking conclusion: during a roughly 50% drawdown from approximately $125K in Q4 2025 to around $60K in Q2 2026, not a single institution surveyed reported reducing its Bitcoin holdings. Buying the dip, at sovereign scale Every institution holding crypto assets in the survey held Bitcoin as its first, largest, and longest-held position. Crypto allocations across the surveyed institutions ranged from 0.5% to 13% of total investable assets. Most opted for a more restrained 1-2% allocation. Sovereign wealth funds sat at the lower end of that spectrum, constrained by multi-layered governance frameworks that make ...