South Korea’s NPS reveals indirect Bitcoin investment through MicroStrategy share purchase

South Korea’s National Pension Service has revealed that it has added MicroStrategy to its US stock direct investment portfolio. This follows the previous investment in Coinbase stock.

As per the details from the 13F quarterly report submitted by the NPS to the US SEC on August 16, the NPS has purchased 245,000 new shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR) in Q2 2024. The purchase was made for 46 billion won, which is equivalent to $33.7 million. This accounts for 0.04% of the pension service’s portfolio in US stocks.

South Korea’s NPS acquired 282,673 shares of Coinbase stock

This is not NPS’s first indirect investment in Bitcoin or crypto in general. The pension service purchased 282,673 shares of Coinbase stock in Q3 2023. Its Coinbase stock purchase proved to be lucrative, as the price of Coinbase rose to around $220 from the purchase price of $78.

NPS even realized some gains by selling 23,956 (0.02%) of Coinbase shares. Following the successful trajectory of crypto-related stocks, NPS has doubled down with a MicroStrategy share purchase. According to local media outlet Yonhap Infomax, the National Pension Service’s stock portfolio also includes technology stocks like Nvidia, Google and Microsoft.

MicroStrategy holds 226,500 Bitcoin

CoinGecko data shows that MicroStrategy is the largest holder of Bitcoin in the category of public companies. As per Saylortracker data, MicroStrategy holds 226,500 Bitcoin at the moment. The current value of these holdings is around $13.21 billion. This brings the current unrealized gains to $4.82 billion. MicroStrategy is a firm believer in its long term Bitcoin accumulation game.

The firm has been consistently purchasing Bitcoin despite market conditions and price fluctuations. The most recent purchase by the firm happened on August 1, 2024, when the firm purchased 169 Bitcoin. At the time of purchase, the price of Bitcoin was around $67,400. Prior to that, in June, the firm made a large investment of $786 million to buy 11931 Bitcoin.

MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor is also quite vocal on X and interviews about his Bitcoin stance. In his recent interview with Bloomberg, he even disclosed that he personally holds 17,732 Bitcoin. He also stressed that he hasn’t sold any of it.

The recent revelation by NPS comes at a time when the SEC has approved the launch of the first single-stock leveraged long exchange-traded fund (ETF) for MicroStrategy. According to the press release, “MSTX seeks to provide 175% long daily targeted exposure to MicroStrategy.”