According to U.Today, MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor has recently suggested that US pension funds, which collectively manage over $27 trillion in assets, may soon need to include Bitcoin in their portfolios. This prediction comes after the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), the agency responsible for managing the state's public pensions, revealed in a Tuesday filing that it had purchased $99 million worth of shares in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF (IBIT).
Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst, believes this could be a pivotal moment for institutional adoption of Bitcoin. Balchunas anticipates that other pension funds may follow SWIB's example and invest in Bitcoin ETFs. This is particularly significant given the traditionally risk-averse nature of pension funds. The introduction of several ETFs earlier this year seems to have made institutional investors more comfortable with the idea of owning Bitcoin.
Earlier this month, Robert Mitchnick from BlackRock disclosed that some major institutional investors, including pension funds, were conducting due diligence before deciding to invest in Bitcoin. Ahead of the May 15 deadline for quarterly 13F regulatory filings, several major firms have revealed their Bitcoin ETF holdings. These include JPMorgan, Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse), Wells Fargo, and Susquehanna International Group (SIG).
Michael Saylor had previously forecasted that 2024 would mark the beginning of the institutional adoption of Bitcoin.