[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong (홍진주)] Wall Street's exposure to crypto assets has expanded to an all-time high, but an analysis said the actual holders and the flow of funds remain unclear.

On April 4 local time, blockchain outlet BeInCrypto tracked Wall Street's crypto holdings using layered data including U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 13F filings, corporate financial statements, tokenised assets, custody structures and on-chain OTC flows.

The key issue is not the total, but who holds what and how. BlackRock said in its 2026 chairman's letter that assets under management linked to digital assets total about $150 billion. Corporate financial statements reflected a total of 1,134,324 BTC as of end-March 2026, and institutions' holdings of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds exceeded 513,000 BTC, according to the tally. Still, it is hard to say that ETF inflows directly translate into conviction spot investing. The figures are only aggregates and do not explain the nature of the money or who is behind it.

A representative example is SEC 13F filings. They show which ETFs institutions bought, but cannot distinguish whether the money is long-term investment or an arbitrage strategy. In the fourth quarter of 2025, bitcoin prices fell about 23%, but global spot bitcoin ETFs still saw net inflows of $3.7 billion. Over the same period, the number of reporting institutions fell to 1,867 from 2,173. This is interpreted as a change in investors rather than institutional exits. During the period, hedge funds used a basis trade combining spot ETF purchases with sales of CME futures, and exposure fell about 10% as spreads narrowed and leverage was reduced.

Outside ETFs, direct corporate holdings appear more extreme. Strategy was shown to hold about 762,000 BTC, and Trump Media & Technology Group reduced its holdings while providing some bitcoin as collateral. Miner Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) sold more than 15,000 BTC and used the proceeds to repay debt. That suggests the nature of holdings is also shifting widely depending on company strategy.

Wall Street's crypto exposure is also expanding in ways that do not involve directly holding tokens. BlackRock's tokenised money market fund BUIDL has grown to a multi-billion-dollar scale, and links to the DeFi ecosystem are strengthening. According to on-chain data platform RWA.xyz, tokenised U.S. Treasuries exceeded $12.6 billion, accounting for about half of the overall real-world asset market.

As exposure grows, a key risk concentrates in custody. According to the article, Coinbase holds more than 80% of U.S. spot bitcoin and ether ETF assets. A structure in which many ETFs use the same custodian is cited as a potential risk factor that could spread shocks across the market if a cyber incident or service disruption occurs.

A bigger blind spot lies outside disclosures. 13F applies only to U.S. institutions above a certain size, so money invested through family offices, overseas entities or brokerage accounts is not captured. That gap is partly supplemented by on-chain data. Large fund movements at OTC desks and flows from unlabeled wallets reveal the outline of undisclosed holdings, but it is difficult to fully grasp the whole picture.

Wall Street's participation in crypto markets is expanding rapidly, but an assessment said the question of who holds how much remains unresolved because a gap still exists between disclosure data and on-chain data.