Tudor Investment Reverses Bitcoin ETF Selling Streak, Adds 109k Shares in Q2

Tudor Investment, the macro hedge fund founded by billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, added to its stake in BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF last quarter, reversing a year-long stretch of selling. The Connecticut firm held 688,529 shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, valued at about $22.9 million as of June 30, according to a 13F filing submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Aug. 14. That marks an 18.9% jump from the 579,083 shares it reported at the end of March, a net addition of 109,446 shares. The increase is modest in the context of Tudor's roughly $100 billion-plus in assets, amounting to a fraction of a percent of its reported 13F holdings, and it remains far below the firm's late-2024 peak of more than 8 million IBIT shares, then worth around $427 million, which it whittled down through 2025. Still, the reversal is being read as a notable signal from one of Wall Street's most closely watched traders returning to accumulation. The filing also showed Tudor reshaping how it holds that exposure. The firm slashed its reported call options tied to IBIT by about 85%, to the equivalent of 148,000 underlying shares from 998,000, while its put position held roughly steady. The shift from options toward direct shares suggests a move away from leveraged bets and toward straightforward spot exposure, though 13F filings don't disclose strike prices or expirations, leaving the full strategy unclear. Jones has long championed Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, a thesis he first laid out in a 2020 market note and has reiterated since, framing the asset as a bet against currency debasement and, at times, as an option on geopolitical instability.