It’s called ‘digital gold’… Will Pension Funds Invest in Bitcoin?

[이데일리 조해영 기자] On the 26th, the Faculty and Staff Mutual Aid Association announced, “We have not considered investing in Bitcoin-related exchange-traded funds (ETFs) at all and do not have any plans.” Prior to this, on the 25th, it was an explanation according to a media report that the Faculty and Staff Mutual Aid Association would invest in a Bitcoin-related ETF through an investment review committee.

(Photo = Image Today)

Conservative institutional investors… “Stability and long-term importance are important”

The possibility of Bitcoin investment by the Faculty and Staff Mutual Aid Association was closed as the Faculty and Staff Mutual Aid Association denied that it had reviewed any investment within a day of reporting, but the industry has its own interpretation of virtual currency investment by major institutional investors such as pension funds and mutual aid associations, including the Faculty and Employees Mutual Aid Association. seems to be offering

It is difficult to find domestic institutional investors who directly invest in virtual currencies including Bitcoin. A Mutual Aid Association official said, “The Mutual Aid Association receives money from its members, manages it, and returns it so that they can prepare for their retirement. “He said.

One reason is that the government is conservative with cryptocurrencies. Analysts say that investing in virtual currencies that the government has not officially recognized can be ambiguous because many of the major mutual aid associations as well as the National Pension Service under the Ministry of Health and Welfare are under government ministries.

For this reason, an official from the financial investment industry who heard about the Bitcoin investment by the Teachers and Staff Mutual Aid Association said, “Institutional investors are conservative, and the Teachers and Staff Mutual Aid Association has the largest amount of assets among all the mutual aid associations, so I thought it was surprising to hear that they were investing in bitcoin.” said

Seoul Yeouido Teachers’ Mutual Aid Association (Photo = Faculty and Employees’ Mutual Aid Association)

Overseas pension funds invest in virtual currency-related assets

If you look abroad, you can often find institutional investors investing in virtual currencies. For example, CalPERS (California Public Officials Pension Service), a large US pension fund, bought and invested in Riot blockchain stock, a bitcoin mining company in 2017. The Firefighter Relief and Retirement Benefit Fund in Houston, Texas, USA, bought Bitcoin and Ethereum through a cryptocurrency investment company.

In fact, it is not that domestic institutional investors do not invest in virtual assets at all. Considering the total size of the assets they roll, the scale of virtual asset-related investment is not large, but virtual asset-related investment is being carried out in an indirect way.

According to data submitted by the Office of the People’s Strength Councilor Yoon Chang-hyeon this year, it was found that the National Pension Service was indirectly investing in virtual currency-related assets with 34.66 billion won and 490 million won from the Korea Post. Funds invested by these institutions invest in major domestic cryptocurrency exchanges.

However, considering the characteristics of virtual currency and the position of virtual currency as viewed by the government, it is expected that it will not be easy for domestic institutional investors to directly invest in virtual currency like overseas. Another industry official said, “Institutional investors are discovering various alternative investments for return, but it is unlikely that they will invest directly in virtual currency.”