Bank of America Stealthily Buys Exposure to Bitcoin

As you’re well aware, the US government has been putting on an all-out full frontal assault against crypto in the last few weeks. The latest ridiculousness from Washington D.C. came from the US Treasury which said DeFi was a threat to national security due to money laundering. Never mind the well-known laundering schemes that came from large US banks like Wachovia and HSBC, just to name a few. Even NPR admitted that banks are routinely used for money laundering. The truth is that it happens mostly through banks and a small portion happens through crypto/DeFi, but nowhere near the amount that would deem DeFi a national security threat. Pretty laughable indeed.  

Even with all the noise and FUD coming from the government, there are still many bullish signs for crypto and DeFi. One of those signs came recently from Bank of America as they bought 226,506 shares of Microstrategy, which is one of the most well-known Bitcoin investors in the world.

The story first got out when @filbfilb made the following Tweet on April 5th (which was then retweeted by @DaxxTrader):

 

If you can’t see on the chart, Bank of America bought 226,506 shares worth $59.5M. Another way to explain this is BofA increased their holdings in Microstrategy by a whopping 47,786%. You also may have noticed that Fidelity purchased 96,800 shares worth $25.4M representing a 28,982% increase in their holding. Even BlackRock increased its holdings by 10,836 shares. There were 6 increases and 4 decreases in shares held by the top 10 shareholders. Not too shabby at all. Here is the shareholder report from CNN.

Interestingly, this comes at a time when Microstrategy has been buying more Bitcoin than you can shake a stick at. They’ve had several big buys recently, with many on Twitter reminding everyone that Microstrategy now owns 1 out of every 150 Bitcoins. You can just follow Michael Saylor’s Twitter account to get caught up on their recent buys.

It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to understand why BofA, Fidelity, and Blackrock are buying Microstrategy – they want exposure to Bitcoin. These are big-time institutions and they’re basically signaling that they think Bitcoin has a bright future…because it does. But why doesn’t BofA hold its own Bitcoin? Well, you guessed it, they’re unable to play due to existing and possible future regulatory concerns, as CEO Brian T. Moynihan said earlier this year. That is obviously a shame and will hopefully change in the not-so-distant future as our fossilized octagenarian politicians get voted out or simply become too old.

Sometimes we need to see through the noise, distractions, and FUD in order to have a clear picture of what is actually happening. The government will not be able to stop Bitcoin. They’ll have to either pass new regulations for crypto/DeFi or take each major project to court. If they go the court route, they might have a tough time because several high-profile cases such as Ripple and Grayscale are rumored to be winning against the SEC. If/when these cases are won, the legal precedent will begin taking shape and subsequent cases brought by the SEC will become frivolous.

To close, I’d like to leave you with this Tweet from @macro_diary that eloquently sums up how the US is shooting itself in the foot:

 

Be blessed.