Top-tier U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley has reportedly achieved a two-fold increase, regarding its acquired shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust since April.

Specifically, per insights generated by the US SEC, the Morgan Stanley Europe Opportunity Fund – which specializes in making investments into established and emerging firms across the EU – now has possession of over 58,116 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). 

At the time of publication, the price of GBTC is $34.28, which can be translated to approximate exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) of $2 million, with Morgan Stanley revealing that the shares cost $2.4 million.

Submitted filings reportedly indicated that Morgan Stanley has amped up its shares of GBTC with a 105% surge since April. With that, the bank is believed to be holding 28,298 GBTC, equivalent to around $1.3 million at the time. 

Morgan Stanley has reportedly been putting efforts in obtaining increasing exposure to BTC in 2021. The company’s Europe Opportunity Fund has a target of achieving the highest level of capital appreciation, via making investments in “high quality established and emerging” EU-headquartered firms, which is classified by the team as “undervalued at the time of purchase.”

In April, the investment bank publicly disclosed its intention of adding Bitcoin exposure to 12 investment funds via Grayscale and cash-settled futures.

The bank then led a $48 million funding round for Securitize, a tokenization platform receiving support from crypto exchange platform Coinbase, which is recorded as the first capital investment foray across the blockchain sphere from Morgan Stanley.