Korea Investment Corporation (KIC), South Korea’s sovereign wealth fund with about $232 billion under management, disclosed a first-time position in stablecoin issuer Circle in its second-quarter 13F filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Aug. 12.
As of June 30, KIC held 65,443 Circle shares valued at roughly $4.099 million. The report said that figure translates to about 5.8 billion won using the Aug. 13 exchange rate.
KIC appears in Circle’s shareholder list for the first time
According to the report, KIC had shown zero holdings in Circle across the four 13F filings since the company’s June 2025 listing. This quarter marks its first disclosed position.
The size remains small in the context of KIC’s broader U.S. stock portfolio. The $4.1 million Circle stake accounted for 0.008% of KIC’s $52.66 billion in U.S. equity holdings. The source described that as roughly 8 cents of every $10,000 invested.
That puts the position closer to a trial allocation than a major bet.
Circle was bought during a quarter when the stock fell 34%
Circle shareholders had a rough second quarter. CRCL fell from $95.41 on March 31 to $62.63 on June 30, a 34% decline over the quarter. KIC built the position during that stretch.
Because 13F filings disclose only end-of-quarter holdings and not cost basis, the filing does not show where KIC bought the shares.
After June 30, CRCL rebounded. Circle reported second-quarter results on Aug. 5, with total revenue and reserve income of $701 million, up 7% year over year, below Wall Street expectations of about $713 million. Diluted earnings per share came in at $0.18, ahead of the expected $0.16.
The report also noted that Morgan Stanley cut its price target to $38 on Aug. 3, while the stock moved the other way, rising from $60.35 that day to $71.28 on Aug. 12.
Using the June 30 closing price of $62.63 as the reference point, KIC’s paper gain on the position was about 14%, the report said.
Riot’s position value jumped, but KIC actually reduced shares
The filing highlights why end-of-quarter market value can be misleading on its own. Position value reflects both share count and stock price, and those two factors can point in different directions.
- Riot Platforms: the position’s market value rose from $4.95 million to $8.42 million, a 70% increase on paper. But KIC’s share count fell from 400,174 to 307,539, an actual reduction of 23%. RIOT climbed from $12.36 to $27.38 during the quarter.
- Strategy: the position value dropped from $10.61 million to $7.17 million, down 32%. KIC, however, sold only 2,557 shares, a 3% reduction. MSTR fell 30% in the quarter, accounting for most of the decline in reported value.
- Coinbase: shares held fell from 303,470 to 252,618, down 16.8%. Combined with a 16.3% decline in the stock price, that brought the reported position value down 30%.
Among those three names, the report said Strategy saw little real trimming, Riot looked more like profit-taking into a sharp rally, and Coinbase was the only clear case of a meaningful reduction in exposure.
Robinhood moves into the top spot
On the buying side, KIC increased its Robinhood position from 661,978 shares to 877,115 shares, a 32.5% increase. Its Block holdings rose from 286,572 shares to 359,772 shares, up 25.5%.
The report also highlighted IREN Limited, a Nasdaq-listed company described as shifting from Bitcoin mining to AI data centers. KIC increased its IREN position from 95,100 shares to 138,246 shares, a 45.4% increase, the largest percentage increase among its crypto-related holdings.
Including IREN and the new Circle position, KIC’s crypto-related holdings rose from $135 million in the first quarter to $178 million in the second quarter, up 32%. Counting only five stocks would put the increase at $132 million to $168 million, or 27%.
The ranking also changed. Coinbase had been KIC’s largest crypto-related holding in the first quarter at $52.99 million. In the second quarter, Robinhood moved into first place at $87.96 million, while Coinbase slipped to second at $36.93 million.
The adds and cuts point to different revenue exposure
Looking across both lists, the report drew a contrast between the names KIC trimmed and the names it added to. Strategy and Riot were described as more directly tied to crypto price moves, while Robinhood, Block, IREN and the new Circle stake were linked to fee income, payment volume, compute rental and reserve interest.
The source article also listed related coverage involving Kakao and Circle’s Korean won stablecoin payment push, South Korea’s National Pension Service buying Coinbase and Strategy shares, and Circle’s New York Stock Exchange listing.