First UK Pension Fund Invests in Bitcoin

• British pension specialist Cartwright has guided the country’s first pension fund to allocate money into bitcoin.

• The unnamed fund invested 3% of its total assets directly into the token, as opposed to using a proxy such as a spot ETF.

• Cartwright is also launching a Bitcoin Employee Benefits scheme, which would allow employers to pay bitcoin directly into staff wallets.

British pension specialist Cartwright is urging institutional investors to allocate assets into bitcoin (BTC) and has successfully guided the country’s first pension fund to make an allocation into the token, industry magazine Corporate Advisor reported.

The unnamed fund last month allocated 3% of its £50 million ($65 million) into bitcoin following “lengthy consultations with the scheme’s trustees, where ESG, investment case and security were all addressed at length,” Glenn Cameron, head of digital assets at Cartwright told Corporate Advisor.

This investment is particularly notable as the pension fund actually is investing in the crypto itself, rather than, for instance, a proxy such as an ETF. The private key is split between five independent institutions, according to the report.

What’s also notable is the relative size of the investment. The State of Wisconsin pension, for instance, made news months ago by being the first U.S. state pension plan to invest in bitcoin (via the spot ETFs). That investment, though, footed to just about 0.1% of the plan’s assets. This U.K. pension investment is for a far more sizable 3% of its assets.

Cartwright is also launching a Bitcoin Employee Benefits scheme, it said, which will allow employers to pay bitcoin into wallets created for their staff. Currently, five companies are interested in the product, Cartwright said.

It is unclear the amount of assets Cartwright currently advises on. The firm has anywhere from 51-200 employees, according to LinkedIn and is based in Hampshire in the U.K.