One of Canada's largest institutional investors just found its way into Bitcoin, without actually buying any.
Alberta Investment Management Corporation, the firm that manages pension and endowment assets for the province, disclosed a position of 1.38 million shares in Strategy Inc., formerly known as MicroStrategy. The purchase, made during the first quarter of 2026, cost AIMCo approximately $172.5 million at roughly $125 per share.
By early May, those shares were worth around $241 million -- an unrealized gain of roughly $69 million.
Strategy is the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin treasury assets. Buying MSTR stock gives institutions like AIMCo indirect Bitcoin exposure. Canadian provincial asset managers operate under strict regulatory frameworks that limit direct cryptocurrency holdings. Buying shares of a Nasdaq-listed company that holds a massive Bitcoin treasury is a regulatory-appropriate path.
AIMCo manages between $142 billion and $195 billion across Alberta's pension plans. This is the first reported Bitcoin-linked exposure by any Canadian provincial entity through Strategy shares.
AIMCo previously held a smaller MSTR position of roughly 200,000 shares between 2019 and mid-2020, selling in September 2020 -- right around the time Michael Saylor pivoted the company's treasury strategy toward Bitcoin. The new purchase, nearly seven times larger, reads like a correction of that earlier call.