Norway's oil fund, NBIM, now has an indirect exposure of 9,573 bitcoin through listed companies with BTC on its balance sheet, after two consecutive years of around 150 percent annual growth in 2024 and 2025.
According to the “This Week in Crypto” newsletter from K33 Research, led by Head of Analytics Vetle Andreas Lunde, NBIM's indirect BTC exposure has skyrocketed in the past two years as several listed companies have adopted bitcoin as a reserve asset. The fund, led by Nicolai Tangen (pictured), is restricted through its mandate to investments in stocks, bonds and property, and has therefore not bought bitcoin outright. Instead, exposure has grown as a side effect of broad, global diversification into companies that increasingly hold BTC on their balance sheets, from early adopters like Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) to emerging bitcoin treasury companies in Japan, among others.
NBIM's latest ownership overview shows that the fund's indirect BTC exposure is now equivalent to 9,573 BTC, an increase of 5,734 BTC in the past year alone, according to “This Week in Crypto”. Indirect BTC holdings increased by 155 percent in 2024 and another 149 percent in 2025, giving two consecutive years of around 150 percent growth in the fund's Bitcoin-linked position. Measured in NOK, NBIM's indirect BTC exposure amounted to NOK 8.5 billion at the end of 2025, equivalent to approximately $837 million. Compared to a previous measurement of 7,161 BTC, reported by K33 in mid-2025, the new figures confirm that the fund has continued to build indirect bitcoin exposure throughout the second half of the year, without buying BTC outright.
NBIM's mandate means that the fund can only invest in listed stocks, bonds and real estate, meaning that all bitcoin exposure is indirect and comes via companies that hold BTC on their balance sheets. In this group, Strategy stands out as by far the most important driver of NBIM's BTC exposure. The company has built up such a large Bitcoin holding that it now accounts for a significant share of all BTC held by listed companies globally, and around 81 percent of NBIM's indirect BTC exposure is attributable to Strategy. NBIM also holds smaller positions in other BTC-exposed companies, with the largest percentage holding in the Japanese treasury company Metaplanet, showing that bitcoin on its balance sheet is no longer a purely US phenomenon.
Despite strong growth in the number of bitcoin, the relative weight of NBIM's indirect BTC exposure has remained remarkably stable in portfolio contexts. In the last two reporting periods, just under 0.04 percent of the fund's total assets have been attributed to indirect BTC exposure, suggesting that the bitcoin share is held within a narrow range. It may indicate that the fund is in practice accepting a small, but non-zero, BTC exposure as part of a broadly diversified global portfolio. At the same time, the stability in percentage terms shows that NBIM does not take an active, directional position in bitcoin, but allows the BTC‑linked investments to develop in tandem with the rest of the portfolio.
NBIM's indirect bitcoin exposure is still modest compared to the total size of the fund, but the composition is nonetheless interesting. A large portion of BTC exposure derives from broad, index-close positions in large, liquid companies — not from narrow, high-risk crypto stocks. The fund does not have exposure to listed treasury companies that focus on other cryptocurrencies, underscoring that the indirect digital asset exposure is in practice almost purely Bitcoin-driven. It mirrors the current structure of the public capital markets, where BTC is by far the dominant crypto asset on corporate balance sheets and the only one to systematically appear in major stock indexes.
In “This Week in Crypto,” K33 and Vetle Andreas Lunde use NBIM's position as a temperature gauge on how far bitcoin has entered mainstream finance. When K33 previously reported that NBIM's indirect exposure had reached 7,161 BTC, the position was referred to as an unintended result of the fund's broad portfolio, rather than a strategic decision. The jump to 9,573 BTC and 8.5 billion NOK by the end of 2025, as stated in the latest newsletter, confirms that this trend continues even through periods of demanding short-term price development in the BTC market. As more companies incorporate bitcoin into their balance sheet and treasury strategies, most broadly diversified investors will end up with some BTC exposure — whether planned or not, and NBIM illustrates this shift in real time.
Source: K33 Research — “This Week in Crypto” Newsletter
