PANews reported on February 9 that according to the FT, foundations and university endowment funds in the US are increasing their investments in cryptocurrencies. Although cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, their performance has far exceeded other asset classes over the past five years, and many who were originally on the sidelines are now joining in, fearing they will miss out on the price surge.
The University of Austin, which was established a year ago, is raising a $5 million Bitcoin fund for its $200 million endowment fund, which is the first such fund among US endowment funds and foundations.
In October, Emory University in Georgia became the first university endowment fund to disclose its holdings of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. According to the foundation's chief investment officer, the $48 billion Rockefeller Foundation is considering increasing its investment in cryptocurrencies, provided that its user base becomes more diversified after investing in a cryptocurrency risk fund two years ago.
Pantera Capital, a leading venture capital firm in California focused on digital assets, has seen an eightfold increase in the number of its endowment and foundation clients since 2018.
Leading US endowment funds and foundations are among the first institutional investors to accept cryptocurrencies. Yale University's endowment fund invested in two cryptocurrency risk funds in 2018, when the Bitcoin price was less than a tenth of what it is today.
Britt Harris, the former chief investment officer of the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company, with $78 billion in assets, said that under his leadership, the largest university endowment fund in the US made "small, experimental" investments in cryptocurrency risk funds in the early 2020s, seeing it as a "potentially attractive future strategy".
