Paul Tudor Jones, whose investment firm disclosed an increased direct stake in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF

Paul Tudor Jones Made a Big Bitcoin ETF Move. The Options Shift Complicates the Story

By Isaac • August 15, 2026 7:16 am • Comments

Paul Tudor Jones is still holding a meaningful position in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF—but the latest filing from his investment firm is not the one-note bullish signal it might appear to be at first glance.

Tudor Investment reported 688,529 direct shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, as of June 30. That was an increase of 109,446 shares from the 579,083 direct shares disclosed three months earlier.

At quarter-end, the direct position was valued at approximately $22.9 million.

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That is the attention-grabbing part of the filing. The options rows are where the story gets more complicated.

According to a detailed comparison by CryptoSlate, Tudor Investment’s reported IBIT call-equivalent quantity fell from 998,000 shares at the end of March to 148,000 at the end of June. That was a decline of roughly 85.2 percent.

The firm’s put-equivalent quantity barely moved by comparison, slipping from 725,000 to 715,000.

CryptoSlate calculated that the direct position grew by 18.9 percent during the quarter. The direct shares were valued at about $22.9 million on the June 30 reporting date.

The report also compared the balance between the two option rows. In March, call-equivalent shares outnumbered put-equivalent shares; by June, the put row was nearly five times the size of the call row.

That reversal changes the tone of the disclosure, but it does not settle the firm’s outlook on Bitcoin. The filing leaves out the option strikes, expirations, premiums and purpose needed to calculate a true directional position.

Put those figures together and the quarter looks more complicated than a “big investor buys more Bitcoin” headline. Tudor Investment added direct IBIT shares, dramatically reduced its reported call-equivalent position and left its put-equivalent position nearly unchanged.

The direct Bitcoin ETF stake grew

The direct-share increase is real and substantial. Tudor Investment’s 688,529 IBIT shares represented an 18.9 percent increase from the prior quarter.

The firm’s second-quarter information table filed with the SEC lists the direct IBIT position separately from the call and put rows. The corresponding first-quarter table provides the March comparison.

For Bitcoin investors, that direct-share increase matters. IBIT gives institutions regulated brokerage exposure to Bitcoin without requiring them to custody the asset directly, and the holding appears in the same quarterly disclosure system used for stocks and other reportable securities.

The June table valued the call row at approximately $4.93 million and the put row at roughly $23.8 million. Those dollar figures reflect the quarter-end value of the underlying IBIT shares, not the market value of the option contracts themselves.

The March comparison shows how sharply the structure changed over one quarter. Direct shares rose by 109,446, call-equivalent shares fell by 850,000 and put-equivalent shares declined by only 10,000.

But a Form 13F is a snapshot, not a live trading screen. This filing describes reportable holdings as of June 30, even though it was submitted later.

It does not show what Tudor Investment bought, sold or hedged after the quarter ended.

It also does not explain why the firm held each position.

Those are concrete changes in the reportable holdings. What happened inside the portfolio after June 30 remains outside this filing.

Why the options cannot be read at face value

The options disclosure is especially easy to misread.

Under the SEC’s Form 13F instructions, listed option values and quantities are reported in terms of the underlying security. The filing therefore shows share equivalents tied to IBIT, not the premium Tudor Investment paid for those contracts.

It does not disclose strike prices, expiration dates, deltas or the purpose of the trade. The public table also does not identify whether the options were part of a hedge, a spread or a broader portfolio strategy.

That means subtracting the 715,000 put-equivalent shares from the direct shares would be misleading. Adding the 148,000 call-equivalent shares would create the same false precision.

The disclosed mix did become far less call-heavy. At the end of March, the call-equivalent quantity was about 1.4 times the put-equivalent quantity.

At the end of June, the put-equivalent quantity was roughly 4.8 times the call-equivalent quantity.

That is a major change in the reported mix. It still does not reveal the firm’s net Bitcoin exposure or its intended direction.

The same limitation applies across institutional Bitcoin ETF filings. Another manager may report a surge in call-equivalent shares while reducing puts, but those figures still do not reveal premiums, trade structure or portfolio purpose.

That is why quarterly filings are valuable without being complete. They show that major managers are actively using spot Bitcoin ETFs and their listed options.

They do not provide a clean label for every position.

What the filing actually tells Bitcoin investors

The clearest conclusion is that Tudor Investment increased its direct ownership of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF during the second quarter.

It also sharply reduced the call-equivalent quantity it reported, while its put-equivalent quantity changed very little. The result was a disclosed position mix that looked materially more cautious than it did three months earlier.

That does not erase the direct-share purchase. It does prevent the filing from being reduced to a simple declaration that Paul Tudor Jones made an unhedged bet on Bitcoin going higher.

For the broader market, the filing is another sign that Bitcoin ETF exposure has moved beyond straightforward buy-and-hold positions. Institutional managers are using direct shares and options together, and the public disclosure rules reveal only part of that machinery.

The headline number is 688,529 IBIT shares. The more important lesson is that the rest of the table matters too.

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