Alternatives, including private assets and cryptocurrencies, may start appearing in 401(k)s now that President Donald Trump has allowed them by executive order. Would it surprise you to learn, though, that some of those assets have already been hiding in plain sight in some widely held mutual funds?
It’s not a big secret that mutual funds have dabbled in private assets for years. Investors may not appreciate how much traditional mutual funds have also found creative ways to get cryptocurrency exposure. This article looks at some of those funds.
There are several ways to access cryptocurrencies, but most asset managers can only buy public companies that hold the currencies, companies that benefit from their trading, or perhaps cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds.
Several public companies style themselves as cryptocurrency treasuries. More than 100 publicly traded companies now have some crypto assets on their balance sheets. None owns more than Strategy MSTR (formerly known as MicroStrategy), a pioneer of this trend. The firm first started investing in bitcoin in August 2020 and now owns more than 600,000 bitcoins, or roughly $70 billion at current prices. That’s more than 60% of the firm’s market cap, so the stock’s fortunes rely almost entirely on bitcoin. The stock moved almost lockstep with bitcoin until 2024, when Strategy’s growth skyrocketed and began trading at a substantial premium.
The company that finances bitcoin purchases with debt and new stock issuance is essentially a leveraged bet on bitcoin. Debate rages over whether Strategy’s price is warranted. Here’s a look at funds that, at least as of their most recent portfolio disclosures, still thought it was worth owning.
A handful of manager Dennis Lynch’s Morgan Stanley strategies top the list (he also subadvises Transamerica Capital Growth IALAX) with more than 5% in Strategy, making it a top 10 position in each. Lynch, an aggressive growth manager who favors concentrated portfolios, invested in Strategy before its massive 2024 rise. So, his large bets are mostly due to price appreciation.
Several large funds have more in total dollars invested in Strategy, including a handful of American Funds like Growth Fund of America AGTHX and Fundamental Investors ANCFX. The broadly diversified funds’ roughly 1% helpings of the company are much smaller than Lynch’s and others’ stakes, but American Funds parent Capital Group has more than $6 billion invested in Strategy.
Capital Group manager Mark Casey is responsible for most of the firm’s stake. He originally bought it in mid-2021 when Strategy was one of the only ways a fund manager could get more direct exposure to bitcoin than an exchange like Coinbase COIN could provide. Casey estimated that if the roughly 20 million existing bitcoins took over all $600 trillion of wealth in the world, each coin would be worth roughly $31 million. While he didn’t think that would happen, he did think it was a better store of value and more useful to retail investors than gold, which accounts for roughly 2% of global wealth. Assuming bitcoin could attain a similar share of global wealth, it would be worth about $500,000. American Funds’ stake is mostly the result of appreciation, but several other managers at the firm have made smaller bets. Six Capital Group strategies own the company.
Strategy’s sky-high returns have inspired several other publicly traded companies to copy its approach. Mara Holdings MARA, Bullish BLSH, Riot Platforms RIOT, Metaplanet MTPLF, and Trump Media & Technology Group DJT all own more than 15,000 bitcoin. These companies are also popping up in funds. A handful of tech-oriented strategies, such as SPDR Galaxy Transformative Tech Accelerators ETF TEKX and VanEck Onchain Economy ETF NODE own more than one of them. Lynch’s Morgan Stanley strategies own bitcoin treasury Twenty One CEP, which went public via a special-purpose acquisition company merger with Cantor Equity Partners.
By dollar amount invested, other widely held strategies come up in the search. A handful of Capital Group strategies have bets on Japanese bitcoin treasury Metaplanet, with American Funds Smallcap World SMCWX topping the list. Small-cap strategies from Avantis, Fidelity, Invesco, and Dimensional own companies like Mara Holdings and Riot Platforms.
While bitcoin may still be the cryptocurrency of choice, additional firms have adopted this approach with other cryptocurrencies. None has been as bold as BitMine Immersion Technologies BMNR. Since June 30, 2025, it has vaulted to one of the top cryptocurrency owners behind Strategy after amassing more than $6 billion in ethereum in six weeks. Time will tell if managers find value in companies pursuing other cryptocurrencies, but so far, ARK Investment Management’s outspoken leader Cathie Wood has added the stock to multiple funds (most funds have only reported portfolio data through June 30).
Most fund managers can’t invest in cryptocurrency ETFs, but some have decent stakes. Multiple funds from Kinetics have large exposures to crypto ETFs, with Kinetics Internet WWWFX having more than 50% of assets in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF GBTC and Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF BTC. Three BlackRock funds have small stakes in the firm’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF IBIT; BlackRock Strategic Income Opportunities BASIX, a flexible bond strategy, holds more than $100 million of the ETF.
Other crypto-oriented investments include the financial exchanges where the currencies trade, such as Coinbase. Wood has been a Coinbase fan. Several of the firm’s offerings have at least 5% of assets in the firm.
Wood and Morgan Stanley Institutional Global Opportunity MGGPX manager Kristian Heugh also own Block XYZ, which owns bitcoin, allows users to trade the currency through its Cash App, and has other crypto-oriented businesses. T. Rowe Price Large Cap Growth TRLGX also has a stake.
So, many retirement investors have not had to wait for an executive order to get cryptocurrency exposure. It has already been lurking in their portfolios.