Qatar May Have Added Bitcoin (BTC) to Its Reserves, Says Scaramucci

Skybridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci recently tweeted that Qatar may have added Bitcoin (BTC) to its reserves, and would be the first Middle Eastern country to do so. The Bitcoin price surged past $64,000 once again on Sunday, March 3, amid strong buying activity in the crypto market.

Max is saying Qatar may have added #Bitcoin to their balance sheet. If true all we can say is thank you Max Keiser! https://t.co/3f2Tnn0avs

— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) March 3, 2024

Qatar and Bitcoin – What’s Cooking?

The recent news regarding Qatar actively looking into Bitcoin investments surfaced last September 2023 for the first time as The Emir of Qatar, His Highness Tamim Bin Hamad, arrived in El Salvador to engage in discussions regarding Bitcoin adoption and other investment prospects. However, there’s no official confirmation on the Bitcoin investments made by Qatar so far.

Bitcoin maximalist Max Keiser, who’s also a close associate to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has been actively gunning for it for a while. The news is gathering momentum because the Qatar Executive Gulfstream G650ER , the private jet of The Emir of Qatar, was seen in Madeira during the Bitcoin Atlantis conference. This happened soon after MicroStrategy director Michael Saylor gave a historic speech at the conference.

However, one question that everyone is asking is what happens to Bitcoin’s (BTC) price once rich Middle Eastern nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar start accumulating Bitcoins with their oil money. We could be seeing massive money gushing into the asset class once again.

Institutions Rushing for BTC

As we saw, massive institutional money has been flowing into the newly launched Bitcoin ETFs, over the last two months.

BlackRock Inc.’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity Investments’ Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) have collectively garnered 79% of total inflows among the “Newborn Nine” funds. In response, four of the remaining seven funds have opted to reduce their fees below those of the two leading funds.

Valkyrie Investments notably slashed its fee to 0.25% from the prior 0.49% following SEC approval, nearly halving the charge. Similarly, Franklin Templeton has lowered its management fee to a sector-low 0.19%, marking a 10 basis points reduction. Notably, Bitwise remains the only fund among the group that has not adjusted its fee structure.

On February 28th last week, the IBIT fund secured $612 million in new investments, marking its highest single-day influx since inception. Moreover, throughout the previous month, it has consistently attracted the majority of new flows. With the distribution network of the world’s largest fund manager, investors may potentially access better liquidity compared to many competitors.