Chris Wood, an executive at Jeffries Financial Group, will cut some of the company’s gold position and buy Bitcoin. The billion-dollar investment firm is one of many big financial companies throwing their capital in the ring for the world’s favorite cryptocurrency.
Gold becomes digital gold
On Dec. 19, 2020, Bitcoin broke a new all-time-high of over $24,000. This brought memories of the 2017 bull run, but with more backing by fundamentals. Since 2017, banks and Wall Street moguls like Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan (JPM) have done 180’s about blockchain technology or Bitcoin (BTC).
So this time, cautious Wall Street is in the game. Christopher Wood, the global head of equity strategy at Jeffries, said that his company is buying Bitcoin. Though he remains bullish on Gold, he will be reducing the company’s gold position in favor of the digital currency. Before these changes, Wood’s fund had allocated about 50% in gold. Now 5% of the gold allocation will go to BTC.
Pension funds stack sats
More specifically, the change in gold allocation will happen in Wood’s long-only global portfolio for US dollar-denominated pension funds. This makes the move one of the first public and large allocations for Bitcoin in a group of major pension funds.
This is not the very first investment of its kind. Apparently, Norway has gained Bitcoin exposure for some of its state-owned investment funds. Likewise, Morgan Creek Digital, a company that invests in blockchain companies, appears to be backed by pension funds in the United States.
Not only could pension funds invest in Blockchian, but blockchain could be used to manage pension funds. No less than Amazon.com has signed up to manage their pension system using this technology.
Meanwhile at Jeffries, the $51 billion firm sees crypto as a part of their larger strategy. Wood says that he plan to increase crypto exposure after the market sees a correction.
Some are seeing this as the first of many moves that could move Bitcoin’s price much, much higher. According to Weiss Crypto Ratings, Bitcoin still has not seen capital coming in from large pension funds or insurance companies. These companies command a huge amount of capital, and should they board the crypto ship, Bitcoin could keep rising in the water.