Jersey Mayor Steven Fulop has announced plans to invest a portion of the city’s pension fund into Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), highlighting a major step toward integrating crypto into municipal finance strategies.
In a post on social media on July 25, Fulop shared that the Jersey City pension fund is updating its documentation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to include Bitcoin ETFs. Jersey City is the second largest city in the state of New Jersey.
The move follows a similar decision by the Wisconsin Pension Fund, which allocated 2% of its $156 billion in assets to Bitcoin ETFs in the second quarter. Experts believe that other states will soon follow in its footsteps and diversify part of their portfolios with Bitcoin ETFs.
According to Fulop:
“The question of whether Crypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is largely over and crypto/Bitcoin has won.”
The Bitcoin ETFs have posted remarkable performances since their launch, with BlackRock’s IBIT recently overtaking Nasdaq’s QQQ in terms of inflows for the year.
Fulop, who has been mayor of the city since 2013, emphasized that he has long been a supporter of crypto and blockchain technology. Highlighting the enormous potential of these innovations, he said:
“I have been a believer in crypto for a long time (through ups and downs), but broadly speaking, besides crypto, I believe that blockchain is one of the most important new technological innovations since the internet.”
The SEC approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin ETFs on US exchanges earlier this year, paving the way for public pension funds to consider such investments.
However, Jersey City and Wisconsin remain among the few public entities exploring this avenue, despite expectations that more would follow suit in the third quarter. Furthermore, Fulop made no mention of plans to invest in other cryptocurrencies or related assets – such as Ethereum ETFs, which began trading earlier this week.
While major financial institutions such as Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase have shown limited involvement in Bitcoin ETFs, with combined investments of less than $1 million, Fulop’s decision signals growing acceptance and recognition of the potential of digital assets.
As the city moves forward with the SEC paperwork, the implementation of Bitcoin ETFs in the pension fund is expected to be completed by the end of the summer. Fulop expressed confidence that such investments would become more common in the future.
Based on CryptoSlate data, Bitcoin reacted positively to the news and was trading at $66,000 at the time of writing, recouping some of the day’s losses.
Bitcoin Market Data
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At the time of printing 23:03 UTC on July 25, 2024the total crypto market is valued at € $2.35 trillion with a 24 hour volume of $92.65 billion. Bitcoin’s dominance currently stands at 55.35%. Learn more about the crypto market ›