Australian pension fund AMP disclosed that it bought $27 million in Bitcoin in May. Will Bitcoin pension funds become mainstream?

Australian Pension Fund Holds Bit

According to a report in the Financial Review, an Australian pension fund, AMP, invested around $27 million in Bit (BTC) in May 2024, becoming the first major Australian pension fund to embrace digital assets. The fund manages total assets of around $57 billion, and the Bit allocation is relatively conservative, accounting for only 0.05% of the total assets.

The report states that AMP bought Bit in the price range of $60,000 to $70,000 as part of a diversification strategy. After Donald Trump was elected President of the United States on November 5, 2024, Bit surged past the $100,000 milestone, but so far, other Australian pension funds have not followed AMP's lead and still view this emerging asset as too risky to adopt.

Pension Funds Venture into Bit

The sustained rise in Bit prices and its hedging function have attracted the attention of global pension funds, which are seeking to maximize returns while maintaining purchasing power.

• In July 2024, a pension fund in Michigan disclosed that it had a $6.6 million Bit exposure through the ARK 21Shares Bit ETF.

• In August 2024, the National Pension Service (NPS) of South Korea, the world's third-largest public pension fund, also purchased 24,500 shares of Microstrategy, as the company holds a significant amount of Bit through debt financing, making this decision an indirect investment in Bit.

• In October 2024, a Florida public pension fund official, Jimmy Patronis, began calling for the state's pension funds to invest in Bit.

• In November 2024, the UK pension management company Cartwright announced that it would allocate 3% of its assets to Bit. At the time, Cartwright's Chief Investment Officer, Sam Roberts, pointed out that Bit's "unique asymmetric risk-return characteristics" was one of the main reasons for this allocation.