As Bitcoin prices continues to reach new highs, major investors are thinking about getting some skin in the cryptocurrency game.
From Gold to Bitcoin
Many finance and tech experts have recently called Bitcoin a “bubble” and “tulip mania 2.0” but Bitcoin has managed to thrive despite these heavy accusations, and this week it hit a new all-time high price.
Many investors and hedge funds are now planning to invest in Bitcoin, ICOs, and other cryptocurrencies. One of these funds is Old Mutual Gold & Silver, which oversees $220 million of precious metal equities. According to a recent Bloomberg article, the fund has started to invest in the digital currency since April 2017. The fund has been steadily investing at least 5% in Bitcoin and then uses the profits to invest in precious metals like gold and silver.
Ned Naylor-Leyland, Manager of Old Mutual Gold & Silver, stated following in the report:
Bitcoin was explicitly designed to be digital gold. So if you’re going to have a small proportion of a fund in bitcoin, it should be in a gold fund, because that’s exactly the point. It’s about bringing the ownership of disciplined money into the modern world. Bitcoin is paving the way for the reintroduction of gold as global money.
Their unique strategy seems to be paying off since the cryptocurrency managed to climb from April’s price of $1240 to today’s $8203, which equals an impressive increase of over 550%.
Bitcoin: A New Investment Opportunity for Hedge Funds?
Since Bitcoin’s meteoric rise, many investors have now started to primarily focus on cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings. Cryptocurrencies have given many investors stock and gold investors ‘fresh air’, and many experts believe that the market will grow even bigger in the next couple of months.
The famous investor Mike Novogratz, recently forecasted that Bitcoin may rise up to $10,000 and Ethereum as high as $500 by this year’s end. Analysts believe that once Bitcoin futures hit the markets, more institutional investors will pour their money into it and other digital assets.
What are your thoughts on Old Mutual Gold & Silver’s decision to invest in cryptocurrencies? Do you think that in the future more funds will start investing into cryptocurrencies? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Pixabay, Bloomberg/Simon Dawson