Giant MassMutual Insurance Buys $ 100 Million of Bitcoin

Insurance giant Massachusetts Mutual recently unveiled a $ 100 million investment in Bitcoin (BTCUSD) for its overall investment account. The company purchased its Bitcoin through New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) and took a $ 5 million minority equity stake in the fund management outfit. In a press release, MassMutual said the investment gave it “a measured but meaningful exposure to a growing economic aspect of our increasingly digital world.”

Why MassMutual’s entry into Bitcoin is Substantive

Among them institutional investors who have put money in Bitcoin, Massachusetts Mutual are a special case for a couple of reasons. First, it is a conservative investor, which means it only invests in proven financial products or those that are investment grade.

MassMutual CEO Roger Crandall he told Yahoo! Finance recently reported that the company’s investment portfolio is geared toward a “long-term approach” and consists primarily of property, real estate and equity-grade fixed income instruments. This approach is important to ensure that the company has a consistent income stream to pay its annuities and entitlements. Those commitments can work out to a tidy sum: in the last year alone, the company paid $ 5.7 billion in claims. MassMutual’s purchase of Bitcoin marks the entry of a prudent investor into a market renowned for its volatility.

Second, MassMutual’s Bitcoin bet example could encourage other companies from conservative sectors, such as insurance and pension funds, to enter the market. “MassMutual Bitcoin purchases represent another milestone in the adoption of Bitcoin by institutional investors. The potential demand that may arise over the coming years can be seen as other insurance companies and pension funds follow MassMutual’s lead,” wrote a team of strategists , including Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, at investment bank JPMorgan.

According to the note from JPMorgan strategists, allocating only 1% of funds from pension companies and insurance companies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan would move $ 600 billion of institutional funds into cryptocurrencies. At current valuations, that amount represents almost the entire market capitalization of cryptocurrencies today.

For investors themselves, putting money into cryptocurrency could represent a thoughtful diversion away from fixed income assets to those that offer significant returns. Low to negative interest rates coupled with a volatile macro environment have reduced returns from traditional instruments, such as government bonds, in recent years. On the other hand, volatile assets, such as the stock market, have become popular instruments for multiplying capital. Bitcoin and crypto markets could become a viable treasury tool in the future.

However, it is important to remember that MassMutual’s Bitcoin investment equates to a rounding error on its balance sheet, given that it has more than $ 275 billion of assets under management. While returns from its Bitcoin investment could boost its balance sheet, the cryptocurrency’s volatility could prevent the company from making further commitments to the asset class. Until cryptocurrency markets and infrastructure become stable channels for value exchange between participants, companies like MassMutual might be willing to simply dip their toes in crypto instead of committing to it.