Jersey City To Adopt Bitcoin ETFs in Pension Fund Allocation

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has disclosed that the city’s pension fund will invest some of its resources in Bitcoin ETFs. This move comes in the wake of the Wisconsin Pension Fund, which has already included Bitcoin ETFs in its investment portfolio.

Jersey City To Adopt Bitcoin ETFs

Jersey City’s decision to buy Bitcoin ETFs clearly indicates that the city is open to accepting and integrating cryptocurrencies. The mayor of Jersey City, Mr. Fulop, has shared his vision on cryptocurrencies saying that he has been a supporter of them for quite a long time though they are rather volatile.

According to him, the pension fund of Jersey City is in the process of filing new papers with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the process should be completed by the end of summer.

This comes at a time when more and more traditional financial institutions are opening up to the world of digital assets. At the same time, he stressed the importance of blockchain as a revolutionary technology that is on par with the internet.

Not my normal subject matter in a post but I’ll share anyway – the question on whether Crypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is largely over + crypto/Bitcoin won. The #JerseyCity pension fund is in process of updating paperwork to the SEC to allocate % of the fund to Bitcoin ETFs… https://t.co/5iNEqRqHGM

— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) July 25, 2024

In May this year, the pension fund of Wisconsin invested 2% of its money by buying over $160 million in shares of Bitcoin ETF. According to the report, between January 1 and March 31, SWIB purchased roughly $99 million worth of Blackrock’s Bitcoin ETFs and about $64 million worth of Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETFs.

Expansion of Bitcoin ETFs and Institutional Interest

Jersey City’s decision follows a trend of an increasing uptake of Bitcoin among institutional investors across the United States. In an earlier interview in May, Michael Saylor, the Chairman of MicroStrategy, stated that it was only a matter of time before Bitcoin would be included in the U. S. pension fund portfolios. Saylor’s advocacy for Bitcoin in pension funds is gaining traction as more institutional investors recognize the potential of cryptocurrencies as part of diversified investment strategies.

Moreover, investor and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki has endorsed Bitcoin and mentioned that policies under a Trump administration could lead to more gains in the value of cryptocurrencies. Kiyosaki believes that a weak US dollar would lead to more exports and jobs hence the price of gold, silver, Bitcoin, and stocks would rise.

Given that over $27 trillion is managed by pension funds alone in the U. S., including cryptocurrencies could benefit from diversification of investments and improve returns.

Furthermore, the Japanese SBI Holdings revealed that it plans to partner with Franklin Templeton to launch a new investment management business of digital assets this year. This partnership is meant to facilitate the growing need for Bitcoin ETFs and other digital assets.

Bitcoin Price Trend

Amid these developments, Bitcoin (BTC) price has had bearish momentum in the last 24 hours, with the price swaying between an intra-day high and low of $66,112.37 and $63,473.47, respectively.

At press time, BTC price was trading at $64,882, a 1.80% decline from the day’s high.

Concurrently, BTC’s market capitalization dipped by 2.09% to $1,275,856,485,468, while the 24-hour trading volume surged by 36% to $37,635,593,518. This surge in trading volume suggests an increase in investor interest as they buy the dip in the hope of a bullish recovery to $ 70,000.