Jane Street cuts Bitcoin ETF holdings 71% and nearly doubles Ether exposure in Q1 filing

Jane Street slashed its Bitcoin ETF holdings in Q1 2026 while loading up on Ether funds, according to a 13F filing published Tuesday.

The firm’s position in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust dropped 71% to roughly 5.9 million shares worth $225 million. Three months earlier, that position sat at 20.3 million shares worth over $1 billion. Fidelity’s FBTC fell 60% to about 2 million shares at $115 million.

The Ether side went the opposite way. Jane Street almost doubled its investment in BlackRock’s ETHA and increased its investment in Fidelity’s FETH, contributing about $82 million in Ether ETFs during the quarter, according to Blockonomi.

A 13F only photographs one side of a market maker’s book

A 13F report is simply a photo that shows the long side of a trader’s book. It includes all reportable holdings at the end of the quarter. This does not include shorts, options, futures, swaps, or other forms of derivatives exposure.

Jane Street is a major ETF market maker. It generated $16.1 billion in trading revenue in Q1 alone, Reuters reported. The firm’s actual net crypto exposure could look nothing like what the 13F shows.

As Cryptopolitan reported in February, the question of whether Jane Street is genuinely long Bitcoin or simply holding inventory as part of its market-making operations has been debated for months.

Crypto analyst Justin Bechler argued the firm’s 13F “is a photograph of one side of the balance sheet. Nobody outside the firm can see the other side.”

CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno pushed back, saying buying spot and selling futures simultaneously is standard practice across hundreds of firms.

Bitwise advisor Jeff Park responded to the Q1 filing, writing that Jane Street had “slashed its Bitcoin ETF exposure” and added, “Price discovery is back on the menu.”

Parker White, COO of DeFi Development Corp, argued the lighter reported position could remove a key overhang for BTC.

Jane Street pulls back from BTC 

The Bitcoin pullback wasn’t limited to ETFs alone. Jane Street trimmed its holding in Michael Saylor’s Strategy by around 78%.

It dropped from about 968,000 shares (approx. worth $146 million) to around 210,000 shares (approx. worth $27 million). That reversal followed a 473% increase in the prior quarter. The firm also trimmed stakes in miners IREN, Cipher Mining, TeraWulf, and Core Scientific.

Not everything was cut. Riot Platforms grew to 7.4 million shares from about 5 million. Coinbase rose to around 888,000 shares. Galaxy Digital saw the sharpest jump, from 17,000 shares to roughly 1.5 million.

Jane Street is also facing legal scrutiny tied to the 2022 Terra collapse. Terraform Labs filed a suit against the company in February due to the alleged conduct of insider trading.

In April, Jane Street petitioned to have the case dismissed on grounds that it was a cash grab and was blaming the firm for something it had no part in creating. The case remains active in the Southern District of New York.

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