Pension fund for Texas firefighters reportedly allocates $25M to Bitcoin and Ether

The pension fund for firefighters in Houston has allocated part of its $4 billion portfolio towards crypto.

According to a Thursday Bloomberg report, the Houston Firefighters' Relief and Retirement Fund used the New York Digital Investment Group, or NYDIG, to execute the purchase of $25 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Public records through the Texas comptroller’s office show the pension fund held more than $4.1 billion in total net assets as of June 2020, meaning the group has allocated roughly 0.6% of its portfolio towards digital assets.

“We have been studying this as an asset class to add to our investment portfolio for quite some time,” said the fund’s chief investment officer Ajit Singh. “It became an asset class we could not ignore anymore.”

He added:

“As more and more institutional adoptions happen, there will be more and more dynamics that develop for supply and demand. And having physical assets — actual tokens — gives us in the future the possibility of income generation potential.”

The fund is responsible for the benefits of more than 6,600 active and retired firefighters as well as surviving family members. According to the group, more than half of the fund is invested in common and private equity but also includes domestic stocks, international stocks, bonds, cash and real estate.

Related: Crypto and pension funds: Like oil and water, or maybe not?

In June, retirement plan provider ForUsAll gave its clients the option to invest up to 5% of their portfolio assets in cryptocurrencies, saying United States citizens could be at a “disadvantage” if they are not given the option of accessing crypto assets in their retirement plans. Earlier this year, Grayscale also reported that it had seen pension funds and endowments investing actively into its funds with exposure to crypto.