A portion of Houston’s firefighters’ pension fund’s $4 billion portfolio has been allocated to crypto. A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income.
Pension funds typically have large amounts of money to invest and are the major investors in listed and private companies.
In a press release on Thursday, the Houston Firefighters’ Relief and Retirement Fund purchased $25 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum from the New York Digital Investment Group. As of June 2020, the Texas comptroller’s office shows the pension fund held more than $4.1 billion in total net assets, which means that approximately 0.6% of its portfolio is allocated to digital assets.
The investment “represents a watershed moment for bitcoin and its place in public pensions,” Nate Conrad, NYDIG’s global head of asset management, said. Public pension funds oversee about $5.5 trillion worth of assets, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators found.
While crypto does have a high potential for short-term gains, it also has a high risk of big losses. However in the long run, the jury is still out on its reliability as an investment vehicle.
