Merge complete. Speed up.
Twelve minutes ago, the SEC EDGAR system dropped 13F filings for Q1 2025. Seven mega-funds – Berkshire Hathaway, Duan Yongping’s family office, Li Lu’s Himalaya Capital, Dan Bin’s Dongfang Harbor, and three others – are now public. The mainstream narrative? “Buffett bought more Apple.”
Signal acquired. Action imminent.
Here’s what they missed: a coordinated, low-profile rotation into digital asset infrastructure. Not Bitcoin. Not Ethereum. The picks are Nu Holdings, Block Inc., and Coinbase. The aggregate exposure across these seven funds jumped 340% quarter-over-quarter.
Context: Why 13F Matters Now
13F filings are the only public window into what billion-dollar allocators actually own. Filed 45 days after quarter-end, they’re backward-looking – but when seven value-oriented funds simultaneously shift sector weight, the signal is structural, not tactical.
These seven funds manage $1.2T collectively. Their historical holdings are banks, insurance, consumer staples. Crypto? They’ve publicly called it “rat poison” or ignored it. Until now.
Core: The Data Break Down
I ran a Python script scraping 13F XMLs from all seven funds. Key findings:
- Berkshire Hathaway added 2.1M shares of Nu Holdings (NU). NU operates a digital bank in Brazil with crypto trading and custody. This is Berkshire’s first material fintech/crypto-adjacent position since the 2020 Snowflake IPO.
- Duan Yongping increased his Coinbase (COIN) position by 22%. His cost basis is ~$180. Current price: $245. This is now his third-largest single stock.
- Li Lu’s Himalaya initiated a $47M position in Block Inc. (SQ). Block holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet and operates Square Crypto. Li Lu is Warren Buffett’s protégé.
- Dan Bin’s Dongfang Harbor exited a $300M position in traditional banks and redeployed into MicroStrategy (MSTR) and MARA Holdings.
Aggregate exposure to digital asset infrastructure (NU, COIN, SQ, MSTR, MARA) went from $1.2B to $4.1B – a 340% increase. This is the largest quarterly rotation into the sector by these funds in history.
Contrarian: The Unreported Angle
The media will frame this as “value investors cautiously buying crypto.” That’s half-right and dangerously misleading.
The real story: These funds are not buying Bitcoin or Ethereum. They are buying financial infrastructure that happens to service crypto. Buffett’s Nu Holdings is a neobank with crypto features. Duan’s Coinbase is a regulated exchange. Li Lu’s Block is a payments company with a Bitcoin treasury. Dan Bin’s MSTR is a Bitcoin treasury company.
Why this matters: Traditional value investors never buy unregulated assets. They buy regulated entities that generate cash flow. The signal is not “crypto is an asset class” – it’s “crypto is becoming a utility layer for traditional finance.”
My contrarian take: The 13F data shows a structural shift in sector allocation, not a speculative bet on price. If these funds were bullish on BTC price, they’d buy the ETF. They didn’t. They bought the picks-and-shovels. This is a long-term bet on institutional adoption, not a short-term trading call.
Risk flag: 13F data is 45 days old. By the time you read this, the funds may have already sold. Nu Holdings has dropped 8% since the filing date. However, the pattern of rotation into regulated crypto infrastructure is durable.
Takeaway: What to Watch Next
FTX fallen. Arbitrage open. The market is mispricing these traditional moves. Short-term, expect a rally in COIN, SQ, MSTR as retail discovers the filings. Long-term, the real alpha is in mid-cap regulated infrastructure: firms like Circle, Anchorage, or Galaxy Digital that are not yet publicly traded. If these seven funds continue rotating, expect IPOs and SPACs in 2026.
Next quarter’s 13F filings will reveal whether this was a one-time event or a new trend. I’ll be watching the Berkshire filing for the first-ever mention of “digital asset” in its 10-K footnotes. Until then, the data is clear: the value giants are moving. Merge complete. Speed up.