Pensions’ move to BTC is slow, steady
BlackRock’s Samara Cohen said “a fair amount of plumbing” is needed to unlock the ability for pensions and endowments to gain BTC exposure
BlackRock CIO of ETF and index investments Samara Cohen | Permissionless III by Mike Lawrence for Blockworks
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Regardless of the election outcome and its impact on crypto prices, some industry watchers have repeatedly noted the long-term tailwinds for BTC.
Among them are ongoing government deficit spending, Fed monetary policy and increased institutional adoption. A large demographic related to the latter is pensions and endowments, which brings us to some of the latest news.
You may have seen last month that Emory University disclosed owning $15 million of the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust and 4,000-plus shares of Coinbase. Then yesterday, a 13F filing detailed the State of Michigan Retirement System’s exposure to crypto.
Wisconsin’s investment board earlier this year revealed bitcoin ETF holdings amounting to roughly $100 million. So, more surprising than the Michigan fund’s $7 million of exposure to the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (as of Sept. 30) was its ownership of roughly $11 million worth of Grayscale ether ETFs.
Also on Monday, consultant firm Cartwright revealed that an unnamed UK pension scheme made a 3% allocation to bitcoin, “reflecting the scheme’s relatively long investment time horizon.” The decision came “after a rigorous training and due diligence process,” it noted.
Samara Cohen, BlackRock’s CIO of ETF and index investments, said at Blockworks’ Permissionless conference last month that there remains “a fair amount of plumbing” needed to unlock the ability for pensions and endowments to gain BTC exposure.
“It could be…what is the financial position of the fund [and] does it make sense to have a bitcoin allocation?” she explained. “And if the answer is yes, does a state law permit the fund to buy bitcoin ETPs? Do their investment guidelines? Does their board?”
Bitcoin-focused platform Onramp noted that Cartwright chose them as the asset manager and custodian to provide their clients with BTC access. Onramp CEO Michael Tanguma told me he expects other pensions to follow suit, noting that he believes bitcoin will ultimately be a core asset in all portfolios.
He added: “The banks stepping in to custody bitcoin, as well as bitcoin’s price inevitably hitting the six-figure mark in 2025, will dictate how fast the rest of the institutions follow.”
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