Sovereign Wealth Funds are Looking to Buy Bitcoin

Sovereign wealth funds, the investment arms of cash-rich nations, are coming for bitcoin as they look at new strategies to protect their interests after the last 18 months of global economic turmoil.

article-image

Singapore; Source: Shutterstock

share

key takeaways

  • NYDIG CEO Robby Gutmann revealed that unnamed sovereign wealth funds have been approaching the firm with inquiries about buying bitcoin
  • Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal mentioned that Singapore Exchange and state-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings has been buying bitcoin.

On Wednesday, NYDIG CEO Robby Gutmann revealed that unnamed sovereign wealth funds have been approaching the firm with inquiries about buying bitcoin, at Real Vision’s online Crypto Gathering event.

In the same conversation, former global hedge fund manager and Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal mentioned that Singapore Exchange and state-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings has been buying bitcoin. Temasek is known to be the higher risk-leaning fund of Singapore’s two sovereign wealth funds.

Sovereign wealth funds, the investment arms of cash-rich nations, are coming for bitcoin as they look at new strategies to protect their interests after the last 18 months of global economic turmoil. Combined, they have almost $8 trillion in assets under management as of December, according to Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.

Last month GIC, Singapore’s more conservative sovereign wealth fund, led an $80 million investment in Anchorage, the US-based “crypto bank” for financial institutions. Anchorage president Diogo Monica told Blockworks at the time that other sovereign wealth funds are, like GIC, “waking up to crypto and coming in in a meaningful way.”

Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley is also on record saying the company is speaking with several state governments about adding crypto to their treasuries.

And though Norway’s Oil Fund, one of the top sovereign wealth funds in the world with more than $1.3 trillion in AUM, only holds bitcoin indirectly (through its 2% stake in MicroStrategy), it could be the next state government to buy it. Earlier this month Aker ASA, a 180-year-old Norwegian industrial holding company with ownership in oil and gas services companies, created a unit dedicated to investing in bitcoin and has about $58.6 million in it now. 

Based on what institutional demand has done for bitcoin in the last five months, sovereign wealth backing would probably bring even more legitimacy and adoption to the digital asset class.

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro

article-image

Cryptocurrency and stock traders alike had a lot to unpack Wednesday

article-image

The government says Storm was a money-hungry aid to criminals; the defense says it’s not his fault that people used his code for illicit activities.