Institutional adoption: investment bank invested heavily in Bitcoin
2 min read- Jefferies have begun to hold Bitcoin in its pension funds.
- The firm’s top executive advises other pension funds to follow suit.
Jefferies, an investment bank that generates close to $3 million in revenue and has $50 billion in assets under management, has now begun to hold Bitcoin in its sole fund dedicated to pensions.
This was disclosed in a note sent to the bank investors by Christopher Wood who is the Global Head of Equity Strategies at Jefferies. According to him, this year was the year Bitcoin matured to become an adoptable asset by institutions.
He added that famous investors and major institutions have also declared that they have bought the crypto asset because it is now seen to be part of the system.
Wood went on to add that retail investors now also have an adequate opportunity to buy into the coin. He also said that he was quite impressed with Microstrategy’s decision to hold its treasury holdings in Bitcoin.
Jefferies has acted as the sole manager of the $650 million offering by Microstrategy. Auditors and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have approved of Microstrategy’s decision to put the coin on its balance sheet.
Wood advises for more institutional adoption of Bitcoin
The strategist at Jefferies has advised pension funds to buy Bitcoin. This decision could have been influenced by Micheal Saylor, the CEO of Microstrategy, who had argued that Bitcoin was destroying gold’s value.
Wood says Saylor’s line of argument could be true. And because of that he has advised pension funds to go long on the digital asset. He is the first investment manager to give the first public recommendation on behalf of the leading crypto assets.
In his recommendation, he said that investors can give 45% to physical gold, 20% to gold stocks, 30% to equities and the remaining 5% to Bitcoin.
While the 5% might be thought of as a small investment percent, when one considers that pension funds usually hold trillions in investments then one would realise it is a pretty huge amount.
