The Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund, a US pension fund with approximately $5.5 billion under management, has announced that it has recently invested in both bitcoin (BTC) as ethereum (ETH). This makes the fund one of the first pension funds in the world that dares to invest in cryptocurrencies.
Pension fund
The pension fund is said to have invested a total of about $25 million. The chief investment officer of the fund, Ajit Singh, thought the choice to invest in these cryptocurrencies was a logical one, he says in a interview met Bloomberg:
“I only see this as a tool to manage my risk. It has a positive expected return and it has a low correlation with other asset classes.”
The fact that this Texas pension fund invests in cryptocurrencies, albeit at just $25 million, is remarkable because so far such pension funds have been wildly conservative when it comes to potential crypto investments.
Only two US pension funds have preceded the Houston Firefighter’s Relief and Retirement Fund. The massive upward price movements of both bitcoin and ethereum in recent times have forced institutional investors to take a closer look at potential investments.
Also the approval of the first bitcoin ETFs can provide a boost to the influx of institutional money. Optimism about further institutional adoption is in any case very high at the moment.
However, Ajit Singh strongly preferred a direct investment in bitcoin and ethereum over a possible investment in one of the new bitcoin futures ETFs. In his view, the risk associated with futures ETFs is too great.
“We didn’t want synthetic exposure. That’s why we decided to go straight to the token. As more and more institutional adoption takes place, more and more changes will develop for supply and demand. Owning physical assets, actual tokens, will generate potential income for us in the future.”
Singh also indicates that they have been closely monitoring developments within the crypto markets for some time. However, there came a time when they could no longer ignore the world of crypto and an investment became a logical next step.
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