Jersey City Mayor’s Pension Fund to Invest in Bitcoin ETFs
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop plans to invest his pension fund in Bitcoin ETFs. Fulop likened the investment to a Wisconsin pension fund's 2% crypto allocation. Bitcoin ETFs approved by the SEC will see less acceptance by major financial institutions.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has announced plans to invest a portion of the city's pension fund into Bitcoin ETFs.
Fulop, who has been in office since 2013, said on July 25 that the city's pension fund is updating its paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to include this new investment strategy.
Mayor Fulop believes in the potential of blockchain and crypto
In a statement on X, Mayor Fulop expressed his long-standing belief in the potential of cryptography and blockchain technology. He did not disclose the exact percentage of the fund that would be allocated to Bitcoin ETFs, but indicated that it would be comparable to the 2% allocated to a Wisconsin pension fund.
Fulop emphasized his belief in the transformative power of blockchain, which he described as one of the most important technological innovations since the Internet.
Not my usual topic in one post but I'll share it anyway – the question of whether Crypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is mostly over + crypto/Bitcoin wins. A #Jersey City pension fund is updating paperwork with the SEC to allocate % of its funds to Bitcoin ETFs.
— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) July 25, 2024
Jersey City to join the state of Wisconsin in investing in Bitcoin ETFs
Fulop's move aligns Jersey City with the Wisconsin Investment Board, which reported in May that it was exposed to identifying bitcoin ETFs issued by Grayscale and BlackRock. At that time, Wisconsin's crypto investments totaled $164 million out of an estimated $156 billion in assets.
The SEC's approval in January paved the way for Bitcoin ETFs to be listed and traded on US exchanges.
However, publicly managed pension funds have been slow to implement this strategy, with only Wisconsin and Jersey City currently considering crypto ETFs.
Interestingly, Mayor Fulop has not made any plans to invest in the SpotEther ETF, which began trading in the US on July 23.
Major financial institutions such as Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase have made small investments in Bitcoin ETFs, less than $1 million combined — a negligible fraction of their massive portfolios.
This initiative by Mayor Fulop marks a major step forward for Jersey City.
