Do you think Institutions secretly HODL Bitcoin?

[Nitori_m]

Most institutions own substantial amounts of btc, It helps to diversify their portfolio. I don't think it is a big secret even if it is not widely talked about

[deisik]

Anyhow, now I am feeling like I am just repeating myself in various ways.. so I am not sure what points differ between you and me, except maybe different ways of framing the issues and the dynamics and likelihood that we do not really disagree about a lot of the underlying dynamics, motivations or distinctions, but we have differing ways of expressing such

I still think there is a fundamental difference in our views

And not on individuals (where we seem to agree), and not even so much on institutions (this is kinda a gray zone where the possible disagreement is vague and not defined) as on governments. My point is that major governments like the US, China, Russia will never accept crypto as a full-fledged currency (other than an economic weapon against each other and the rest of the world)

That would mean undercutting their fiat currencies by letting the competitor in. In simple terms, this is not going to happen as this has little if anything to do with the "honey badger" (and more with politics, so they can't be forced). Some governments may in fact embrace crypto in due course (and that's good) but they won't matter in the grand scheme of things. In these circumstances institutions won't have a say

[JayJuanGee]

Anyhow, now I am feeling like I am just repeating myself in various ways.. so I am not sure what points differ between you and me, except maybe different ways of framing the issues and the dynamics and likelihood that we do not really disagree about a lot of the underlying dynamics, motivations or distinctions, but we have differing ways of expressing such

I still think there is a fundamental difference in our views

And not on individuals (where we seem to agree), and not even so much on institutions (this is kinda a gray zone where the possible disagreement is vague and not defined) as on governments. My point is that major governments like the US, China, Russia will never accept crypto as a full-fledged currency (other than an economic weapon against each other and the rest of the world)

That would mean undercutting their fiat currencies by letting the competitor in. In simple terms, this is not going to happen as this has little if anything to do with the "honey badger" (and more with politics, so they can't be forced). Some governments may in fact embrace crypto in due course (and that's good) but they won't matter in the grand scheme of things. In these circumstances institutions won't have a say

I cannot disagree with any of that, and really if we are speculating about 1-5 years down the road, that is fairly immediate term, and we can only attempt to realistically predict for short periods at a time, because what large governments do next will in part depend upon what others are doing. 

Even large governments are not entities of themselves, and they are mandated by the will of the people.  Whether they are carrying out the will of the people on behalf of a vast majority or a smaller contingency, even the BIG governments are not going to have too many choices to go against the masses in the event that institutions adopt bitcoin and smaller governments and various rich individuals have built businesses around bitcoin. 

If we are talking about what governments are doing now in respect to bitcoin, we can attempt to measure it, and likely they are not doing very much because bitcoin remains too small, and that is back to my point.  On the other hand, even though I am proclaiming bitcoin to be so damned small that neither large governments nor large institutions are acting, they are composed of individuals and smaller entities that increasingly recognize bitcoin to be important.

[deisik]

Anyhow, now I am feeling like I am just repeating myself in various ways.. so I am not sure what points differ between you and me, except maybe different ways of framing the issues and the dynamics and likelihood that we do not really disagree about a lot of the underlying dynamics, motivations or distinctions, but we have differing ways of expressing such

I still think there is a fundamental difference in our views

And not on individuals (where we seem to agree), and not even so much on institutions (this is kinda a gray zone where the possible disagreement is vague and not defined) as on governments. My point is that major governments like the US, China, Russia will never accept crypto as a full-fledged currency (other than an economic weapon against each other and the rest of the world)

That would mean undercutting their fiat currencies by letting the competitor in. In simple terms, this is not going to happen as this has little if anything to do with the "honey badger" (and more with politics, so they can't be forced). Some governments may in fact embrace crypto in due course (and that's good) but they won't matter in the grand scheme of things. In these circumstances institutions won't have a say

I cannot disagree with any of that, and really if we are speculating about 1-5 years down the road, that is fairly immediate term, and we can only attempt to realistically predict for short periods at a time, because what large governments do next will in part depend upon what others are doing

It looks like there are no others

I mean significant and important others. It is the major world powers like the ones already mentioned that directly determine the world policies, either directly or indirectly via institutions like the IMF (in the latter case regarding financial matters). Also, I wouldn't overestimate that "mandate" that people gave to these governments. Obviously, they consist of people, and it is this small group of people who took control over the governments (let's cut the crap about democracy here). And if they keep their financial and monetary policies sane overall (read, they don't hyperinflate fiat), there is little to no threat to them from crypto

If we are talking about what governments are doing now in respect to bitcoin, we can attempt to measure it, and likely they are not doing very much because bitcoin remains too small, and that is back to my point.  On the other hand, even though I am proclaiming bitcoin to be so damned small that neither large governments nor large institutions are acting, they are composed of individuals and smaller entities that increasingly recognize bitcoin to be important

These people have everything they need in life, and above everything else they have power, virtually unlimited power. Why would they care about Bitcoin other than it potentially being pain in the ass? Bitcoin is to take power from them, so why should they really think in favor of it? But as you say yourself, it is too negligible yet to be that pain for real

[jcarlo]

Yes. There are instructions that are holding bitcoin , some are even trading bitcoin using a third party.
I got to know about this from a friend that works for one of such institutions..

Since Goldman Sachs buying Poloniex, i think big financial institution investing on bitcoin or others cryptocurrency but i think mostly bitcoin. CME bitcoin future introduce in late 2017 and thats mean when contract over, they should deliver the real bitcoin

[JayJuanGee]

It looks like there are no others

I mean significant and important others. It is the major world powers like the ones already mentioned that directly determine the world policies, either directly or indirectly via institutions like the IMF (in the latter case regarding financial matters). Also, I wouldn't overestimate that "mandate" that people gave to these governments.

Again, I am trying to avoid prescription, here.  In other words, I am trying to talk descriptive rather than prescriptive, and in that regard, I believe that bitcoin brings a dynamics that will contribute towards various kinds of accountability and momentum that is truly bottom up.

Of course, we are hardly likely to ever get rid of top down dynamics and top down attempts at manipulation and control.

Obviously, they consist of people, and it is this small group of people who took control over the governments (let's cut the crap about democracy here).

I am referring to dynamics that apply across all societies, of course, some are more top down than others and some can really deviate from public mandates in the way they behave and treat people.

And if they keep their financial and monetary policies sane overall (read, they don't hyperinflate fiat), there is little to no threat to them from crypto
 

I am not talking about "crypto"  I am talking about bitcoin.  Fuck all the various pump and dump bullshit.

Anyhow, assuming that you were referring to bitcoin, and you just substituted the word "crypto," then I am still going to make the point that bitcoin is going to force accountability of governments, and of course, we likely do not disagree that more responsible monetary policies are going to compete better and perhaps even stave off some of what seems to be inevitable in the longer term, which is the gravitation of value into bitcoin.  Of course, this could take 100 years to really play out and maybe even 10-30 years to witness powerful changes in the gravitation of value towards bitcoin.

Even if many of us active in these forum threads could be dead or on our final legs before something like BTC world currency status becomes obvious, we are still likely to witness various kinds of little by little of signs moving in that direction... just as we already should notice today that there is little by little advancements in the adoption and the power of bitcoin, even if much less than 1% of the total world population has taken any kind of meaningful stake into bitcoin.

If we are talking about what governments are doing now in respect to bitcoin, we can attempt to measure it, and likely they are not doing very much because bitcoin remains too small, and that is back to my point.  On the other hand, even though I am proclaiming bitcoin to be so damned small that neither large governments nor large institutions are acting, they are composed of individuals and smaller entities that increasingly recognize bitcoin to be important

These people have everything they need in life, and above everything else they have power, virtually unlimited power. Why would they care about Bitcoin other than it potentially being pain in the ass?

You are making my point for me.  They don't give any shits right now about bitcoin or even perceive much if any importance in bitcoin except that bitcoin may appear as a kind of blip on their radar.. and maybe emerging in various kinds of ways but hardly understood by the very powerful for its level of importance.

Bitcoin is to take power from them, so why should they really think in favor of it? But as you say yourself, it is too negligible yet to be that pain for real

Yep.. a blip.. and some of them are learning more and more and seem to be understanding better and better, but we don't have any kind of monolith here, so these matters of evolution and incorporations and change of systems take time to evolve.

Bitcoin is a paradigm shifting asset, and less than 1% of the world seems to have a bit of an understanding of that..

[deisik]

It looks like there are no others

I mean significant and important others. It is the major world powers like the ones already mentioned that directly determine the world policies, either directly or indirectly via institutions like the IMF (in the latter case regarding financial matters). Also, I wouldn't overestimate that "mandate" that people gave to these governments.

Again, I am trying to avoid prescription, here.  In other words, I am trying to talk descriptive rather than prescriptive, and in that regard, I believe that bitcoin brings a dynamics that will contribute towards various kinds of accountability and momentum that is truly bottom up

That sounds pretty ambiguous

Of course, we are hardly likely to ever get rid of top down dynamics and top down attempts at manipulation and control

Obviously, they consist of people, and it is this small group of people who took control over the governments (let's cut the crap about democracy here).

I am referring to dynamics that apply across all societies, of course, some are more top down than others and some can really deviate from public mandates in the way they behave and treat people

This is an obvious catch-22 problem

The top down is top down specifically because it succeeded at manipulation and mind control at some point in the past. And this will always be so. Well, at least as long as humans remain social beings and thus vulnerable as well as prone to manipulation. And no Bitcoin will be able to change that

And if they keep their financial and monetary policies sane overall (read, they don't hyperinflate fiat), there is little to no threat to them from crypto

I am not talking about "crypto"  I am talking about bitcoin.  Fuck all the various pump and dump bullshit

I referred to crypto here more as a technology rather than a specific coin (but let it be Bitcoin, I don't mind)

Anyhow, assuming that you were referring to bitcoin, and you just substituted the word "crypto," then I am still going to make the point that bitcoin is going to force accountability of governments, and of course, we likely do not disagree that more responsible monetary policies are going to compete better and perhaps even stave off some of what seems to be inevitable in the longer term, which is the gravitation of value into bitcoin.  Of course, this could take 100 years to really play out and maybe even 10-30 years to witness powerful changes in the gravitation of value towards bitcoin

Actually, I want to believe in that thing myself

That Bitcoin, or rather the decentralized technology on which it is based, could force accountability on governments but I seem to be more pessimistic about its prospects in this domain. Really, Bitcoin has been around for 10 years already and so what? It was mostly a speculative asset 5 years ago and things didn't change much since then. Somehow, you wouldn't really expect miracles on making governments more responsible from something which people only use to profiteer. Give these people something else more rewarding or enticing to play with and they will happily abandon Bitcoin in the blink of an eye

Even if many of us active in these forum threads could be dead or on our final legs before something like BTC world currency status becomes obvious, we are still likely to witness various kinds of little by little of signs moving in that direction... just as we already should notice today that there is little by little advancements in the adoption and the power of bitcoin, even if much less than 1% of the total world population has taken any kind of meaningful stake into bitcoin

I think you are overestimating the potential benefits of Bitcoin and its advantages before fiat

Indeed, fiat can be a pretty dangerous thing if misused and abused. But there is nothing with Bitcoin which can't be done with fiat as well, but the opposite is not true. Economically, Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies, for the record) are inferior to fiat. At max, Bitcoin is an advanced version of gold but without some of its drawbacks but not all of its drawbacks. And these other drawbacks (the largest being its rigid supply which doesn't follow the demands of an economy) are what make Bitcoin ultimately inferior (though it is definitely good as a vehicle for speculation)

Bitcoin is a paradigm shifting asset, and less than 1% of the world seems to have a bit of an understanding of that

From an economic perspective, Bitcoin is totally subpar to fiat done right

[suzanne5223]

The institutions respect the concept behind bitcoin and blockchain which is why they believed it will hinder their profit level with profession in the future. Do they secretly hodl bitcoin? Yes, they do and you can confirm that from the officials which are against bitcoin when they are in office and but later support it when they are out of office.

[Tungsten-1]

The institutions respect the concept behind bitcoin and blockchain which is why they believed it will hinder their profit level with profession in the future. Do they secretly hodl bitcoin? Yes, they do and you can confirm that from the officials which are against bitcoin when they are in office and but later support it when they are out of office.

Yes I have heard about it that some owners of an institutes do have some investments in multiple coins, some of them are being invest for making profit, the place where I work so I have seen many people using bitcoin, I personally hold my money in form of bitcoin because I trust it the most, now a day market is little down so no better option than holding.

[bhabygrim]

For me they are , I mean why wouldn't they be ? I am sure that they would use anything that they could to gain profit to earn more money .
Why wouldn't they invest on Bitcoin if they know that it would be successful because the government couldn't shut it down , So surely it would continue to grow as the time goes by.

[JayJuanGee]

It looks like there are no others

I mean significant and important others. It is the major world powers like the ones already mentioned that directly determine the world policies, either directly or indirectly via institutions like the IMF (in the latter case regarding financial matters). Also, I wouldn't overestimate that "mandate" that people gave to these governments.

Again, I am trying to avoid prescription, here.  In other words, I am trying to talk descriptive rather than prescriptive, and in that regard, I believe that bitcoin brings a dynamics that will contribute towards various kinds of accountability and momentum that is truly bottom up

That sounds pretty ambiguous

Why does it matter if whatever I am suggesting about dynamics is ambiguous?  What I am suggesting is try to assess current circumstances, and wait and see how the situation evolves and affects a variety of institutions, and currently bitcoin is giving more power to the bottom rather than to the top.  

In essence, I am not really trying to predict anything, but just to describe what seems to be currently taking place and to suggest that based on current bitcoin dynamics, there is likely going to continue to be a gravitation of value into bitcoin which has a lot of other effects that are likely going to be societal wide.  No one is going to really know the details of how the future is going to evolve, but each person may well be able to contemplate various changing dynamics that are partly caused by changed tools and the power of such tools.. referring to bitcoin here.    Once you make various assessments, you assign probabilities to future events and attempt to live your life based on situations that seem more probable to come true.. and you are NOT locked into your initial assessment, because you tweak along the way and hope that you were kind of in the ballpark in your earlier assessments rather than in complete fantasy land..   The closer you are the more likely you will prosper, unless you just get lucky,. but I prefer to live a life of good odds and not too much drama rather than making bets on things that are not likely to happen.  To each their own.  We are not all the same in our views, willingness to take risk, financial means, talents and timeline considerations.

Of course, we are hardly likely to ever get rid of top down dynamics and top down attempts at manipulation and control

Obviously, they consist of people, and it is this small group of people who took control over the governments (let's cut the crap about democracy here).

I am referring to dynamics that apply across all societies, of course, some are more top down than others and some can really deviate from public mandates in the way they behave and treat people

This is an obvious catch-22 problem

The top down is top down specifically because it succeeded at manipulation and mind control at some point in the past. And this will always be so. Well, at least as long as humans remain social beings and thus vulnerable as well as prone to manipulation. And no Bitcoin will be able to change that

Of course, manipulation and attempts at manipulation are going to continue to take place, and those persons who are either of a better mindset or better able to utilize tools available to them are going to fare better under changing dynamics and ongoing various changing ways to attempt to manipulate and be manipulated.  

You seem to be going much beyond what I had been saying, and whether as an individual you are able to figure out ways to have some control over your environment depends on a variety of factors including tools that are available to you and your own resourcefulness to figure out ways to prosper in changing dynamics.  For example, if you do not have decent assessments about what is going on, then you are more likely to be manipulated in ways that you are not willing to accept.. some manipulation is inevitable.. .it is not like each of us come out of the womb with an ability to do whatever the fuck we want... there is a context in which each of us works, and some peeps are born into situations with more options than others, and some peeps are better able to manuever to either make their situation better or worse, with even some luck coming into play, too.

And if they keep their financial and monetary policies sane overall (read, they don't hyperinflate fiat), there is little to no threat to them from crypto

I am not talking about "crypto"  I am talking about bitcoin.  Fuck all the various pump and dump bullshit

I referred to crypto here more as a technology rather than a specific coin (but let it be Bitcoin, I don't mind)

At least, we can avoid another layer of ambiguity, and stick to referring to bitcoin... at least for now.

Anyhow, assuming that you were referring to bitcoin, and you just substituted the word "crypto," then I am still going to make the point that bitcoin is going to force accountability of governments, and of course, we likely do not disagree that more responsible monetary policies are going to compete better and perhaps even stave off some of what seems to be inevitable in the longer term, which is the gravitation of value into bitcoin.  Of course, this could take 100 years to really play out and maybe even 10-30 years to witness powerful changes in the gravitation of value towards bitcoin

Actually, I want to believe in that thing myself

On an individual level, each of us is going to come to varying conclusions about where we believe things are going and how to formulate our own strategies within what we perceive to be the circumstances, including our cashflow, other investments, risk tolerance, view of the asset timeline for investing and skills.  Not everyone is going to come to the same conclusions, which can provide opportunities for those who end up being more correct and also appropriately acting on their knowledge.

That Bitcoin, or rather the decentralized technology on which it is based, could force accountability on governments but I seem to be more pessimistic about its prospects in this domain. Really, Bitcoin has been around for 10 years already and so what? It was mostly a speculative asset 5 years ago and things didn't change much since then. Somehow, you wouldn't really expect miracles on making governments more responsible from something which people only use to profiteer. Give these people something else more rewarding or enticing to play with and they will happily abandon Bitcoin in the blink of an eye

Even if many of us active in these forum threads could be dead or on our final legs before something like BTC world currency status becomes obvious, we are still likely to witness various kinds of little by little of signs moving in that direction... just as we already should notice today that there is little by little advancements in the adoption and the power of bitcoin, even if much less than 1% of the total world population has taken any kind of meaningful stake into bitcoin

I think you are overestimating the potential benefits of Bitcoin and its advantages before fiat

Why does it matter about my estimations?  I am providing an opinion, and others are able to figure out their own opinions.  Nothing wrong if you believe that I give too much weight to one factor or another or reach the wrong conclusions.  

Indeed, fiat can be a pretty dangerous thing if misused and abused.

Fiat is just one of the current dominant dynamics, and who cares if it is good or bad.. it is a tool and part of our current life situation, no?  

Based on current assessments and future projected value, I spend my fiat before spending my bitcoin, but I am not opposed to spending some bitcoin too, especially after my portfolio became profitable and I had largely reached my accumulation goals.   Furthermore, bitcoin remains volatile compared with bitcoin, and in that regard, no problem shaving off BTC profits along the way... In the real world, I do better if I can shave off value and even take advantage of what seems to be inevitable volatility... one of the things that seem most assured about bitcoin is that it is going to continue to be volatile, at least in the foreseeable coming years.  On a personal level, if I recognize something to be so damned certain, then I should be attempting to profit from that, to the extent that I am comfortably able take actions in that direction.

But there is nothing with Bitcoin which can't be done with fiat as well, but the opposite is not true. Economically, Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies, for the record) are inferior to fiat.

Doesn't matter.  You use whatever tools are available to you and to the extent you believe one tool is more valuable than the other, you spend the less valuable one first and save the more valuable one.. hoping that you are correct in your assessments about present and future value... and if you are not sure about your assessments of value, you hedge a bit to the level of your abilities and comfort.

At max, Bitcoin is an advanced version of gold but without some of its drawbacks but not all of its drawbacks. And these other drawbacks (the largest being its rigid supply which doesn't follow the demands of an economy) are what make Bitcoin ultimately inferior (though it is definitely good as a vehicle for speculation)

Of course, a lot of people invest in gold, and they believe that there is some value in that based on historical circumstances and tangibility.  I don't assess much value in that, including my perception of either gold's future value propositions or unlikely Armageddon situations that might cause gold to become more valuable than gold.  Again, I don't liv my life based on events that have very low probabilities of happening.  If an event has less than 1% chance of happening, in my view, then I should be putting less than 1% of effort into preparing for that direction.

    I had considered investing in gold for years, and years, and years, and when bitcoin came into my radar in late 2013, I considered bitcoin as a very good substitute for my having had considered investing in gold.  Accordingly, bitcoin is way more portable, divisible, verifiable, and personally empowering in terms of ability to manage.  I see no reason to hedge with gold, unless a person were to just appreciate collecting things, and I would like to be more portable and flexible, personally speaking.

Bitcoin is a paradigm shifting asset, and less than 1% of the world seems to have a bit of an understanding of that

From an economic perspective, Bitcoin is totally subpar to fiat done right

Maybe that your belief that bitcoin is "subpar to fiat" causes you to spout out various goofy ideas and thinking on the topic of bitcoin.  

Maybe you seem informed about bitcoin, but the fact that you believe it is "less than fiat" shows some kind of gap in your knowledge, especially you have been registered on this forum for several months longer than me.  

Seems that, after all of this back and forth, I am realizing from one stupid statement that you might not understand bitcoin in its current state including considerations about its future direction (which is based on probabilities and assessment of both current factors and future projections of scenarios that have varying levels of probability to take).  That's too bad that I am spending time attempting to discuss these matters with you, and you seem to not understand basic value proposition(s) of bitcoin.  

[coin-investor]

We cannot tell if they are doing this, because of Bitcoin's decentralized and anonymity features, but I guess they are doing this because of Bitcoin's big potential for profit, Bitcoin has been existing for ten years now and there's so many news about it on big media so I'm pretty sure that they are not late on news about Bitcoin.

[StarofBTC]

Most institutions own substantial amounts of btc, It helps to diversify their portfolio. I don't think it is a big secret even if it is not widely talked about

Yep, some of them do hold Bitcoin, only those of them that really understand how it works and why they should invest in it. Who wouldn’t like to buy Bitcoin when they have money to invest in it? Just check out Bitcoin price in 2010, there have been a lot of changes. That same 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz bought a pizza for 10,000 BTC, if he knew it would get to this level, he would have preferred to just store and by now he’ would be one of the richest people that invested in bitcoin cause the price he would have made in 2017 would be surplus.

have you ever asked if some companies are seriously investing in Cryptos and still not talking about it?

Uhhhm, we don’t even know that yet. But most of them would have interest in creating their own coins than to invest in other markets. But we never know, since there’s no way to tell those that are buying and selling Bitcoin, it’s possible that anyone can be investing their money in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency and you will not even know about it.

[mirawantirinjana]

Most institutions own substantial amounts of btc, It helps to diversify their portfolio. I don't think it is a big secret even if it is not widely talked about

even though they have large amounts of bitcoin but I believe that they only save it as an investment, not for the business trips they run.
the government must also make strict regulations for companies that hold bitcoin if the company is open to the assets they have in the government.

[Ailmand]

I believe, yes. Business minded people are into cryptocurrency because they know how bitcoin could be profitable. Companies would definitely invest on bitcoin but of course, they will keep silent and would never announce about it because it's a confidential thing.

[Lawrenzoo]

have you ever asked if some companies are seriously investing in Cryptos and still not talking about it?
They way crypto platform for Institutional client is been developed by the day is become an eye opener that there is serious interest
by companies but I guess anonymity is prefered

Huobi Launches a trading platform for institution https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/huobi-crypto-exchange-to-launch-institutional-trading-to-a-limited-group/

So do you think companies like NASDAQ is good for the market https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-27/nasdaq-is-said-to-pursue-bitcoin-futures-despite-plunging-prices

SO do you think Bitcoin will be the future all sometimes fade away?

Huobi MENA: www.huobimena.com
telegram: https://t.me/HBMENA

Not many of these institutions will tell you they do, but deep inside of them , they believe in the system even against Government wish, but because they are regulated and every of their activities seen, they cannot publicly declare their support, so the best will be to seretely enjoy the benefit of what the cryptocurrency brings in future by secretly Holding it.

[Xising]

Due to bitcoin decentralized nature many cooperation and organizations are now optioning for bitcoin and other cryptocurrency because it give the total freedom in doing transaction and on a fast and secured network, compared to what we use to have where there is high level of third party involvement.

I think that is right. Any person or entity, may it be a corporation or businesses have equal chances and, if they have capacity, has an edge once Bitcoin booms. Also, I think despite many doubters and those who just can see the good in the market, many are still secretly doing some business and keep on investing in the market if they find how profitable it can be, especially on those days when the price point kept on climbing like what is happening recently. So, there is not doubt that there are some entities going for it.

[coinplus]

I don't think it is a secret anymore, I mean we all know there are companies that hold bitcoin now, it depends on what you mean by institutions of course, if you mean really high level ones you can see their investments because most of them are public information, they do take your money after all so as an investor you have the right to know where your money is invested and you can see many of them have a small bitcoin desk as well, that is how they make their trades on bitcoin.

Even a smaller (much bigger than us of course) places like that winklevii twins have been a bitcoin lover as far as we know and had been hoarding their bitcoins for a long time and their company could be considered an "institution" as well. So, it is a public knowledge that these big places HODL bitcoin too.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Yes. There are instructions that are holding bitcoin , some are even trading bitcoin using a third party.
I got to know about this from a friend that works for one of such institutions..

Most institutions own substantial amounts of btc, It helps to diversify their portfolio. I don't think it is a big secret even if it is not widely talked about

Cool stories, bros.  Got any concrete examples of institutions (and not instructions) holding bitcoin? 

Big financial institutions have to report on their investments, and I don't think they would legally be able to keep it a secret if they were investing in bitcoin.  I don't think their investors would be very happy if they did in the event that bitcoin crashed and the institution lost a lot of money. 

There may be some hedge funds and smaller investment firms playing around with crypto, but my guess is that they're not holding a lot of it.  They would also be more likely to buy bitcoin derivatives (futures, options, etc.) if those even exist.  I still can't figure out if crypto derivatives have been created yet or where they're traded if they have.  There just isn't enough actual bitcoin in circulation for large firms to buy it in bulk, so they would have to trade "paper bitcoin" if they were to invest in it at all.

But no, I don't think any of this is done in secret.  I don't think it can be a secret.

[jjjfff]

Big financial institutions have to report on their investments, and I don't think they would legally be able to keep it a secret if they were investing in bitcoin. 

They can keep it a secret in one of their offshore branches where they're not required to report on anything

(Just like they do with the US dollar.)