Governments are looking to buy Bitcoin, NYDIG CEO confirms

State-owned investment funds are reportedly making inquiries into buying Bitcoin (BTC).

According to Robert Gutmann, CEO of New York Digital Investment Group, the firm has been having conversations with sovereign wealth funds about possible Bitcoin investments.

Gutmann made this known while appearing at a virtual podcast with investment strategist and founder of Real Vision Raoul Pal.

Pal also confirmed Gutmann’s revelation, stating that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek was indeed a Bitcoin investor.

According to Pal, Temasek which holds about $306 billion in assets under management, has been buying virgin Bitcoin from miners.

Tweeting on Thursday, Pal characterized the imminent entry of sovereign wealth funds into the Bitcoin space as a “wall of money.”

Temesek

— Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) March 25, 2021

Indeed, since publicly-listed firms like MicroStrategy and Tesla began holding BTC on their balance sheets, there has been speculation about whether governments would follow suit.

Drawing parallels between the appeal of Bitcoin for public firms and sovereign wealth funds, Gutmann touched on the desire of institutional investors to hedge their dollar-denominated liabilities.

According to Gutmann, investors are re-evaluating their portfolios, adding:

“If you look at the world today on a forward basis, it is reasonable to be asking yourself as an investment committee or as an allocation committee [if] having all of [their] assets denominated in dollars against dollar-denominated liabilities is the right allocation mix.”

Back in August 2020, upon announcing its first Bitcoin purchase, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor touched on the long-term value of BTC vis-à-vis the depreciating value of cash over time.

Earlier in March, Russ Koesterich, portfolio manager at BlackRock’s Global Allocation Fund characterized gold’s status as an inflation hedge as being exaggerated.

Bitcoin is currently down 8% over the last 24 hours in what is likely an upside price dislocation given the significant decline in the volume of Bitcoin held on exchanges. Despite the current drop, BTC is still up about 78% year-to-date.