Ontario Teachers Pension floats with FTX trading amid crypto volatility
The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP), Canada’s largest professional pension fund company, has revealed that its stake in FTX trading has the lowest risk in the entire crypto-asset class, Reuters reported that on Tuesday.
The pension fund further said that its investments in crypto trading platform FTX have grown well in uncertain times.
The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan’s comments came after another Canadian pension fund company called “Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec” announced in August that it was writing off its entire $150 million investment in crypto-lending platform Celsius Network after the lender filed for bankruptcy this year.
The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, Canada’s third largest pension fund, oversees $227.7 billion in net assets. Last October, the pension fund ventured into the crypto business with an investment in crypto exchange FTX Trading Ltd’s $420 million funding round.
Jo Taylor, CEO of the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, told Reuters earlier: “In terms of the risk profile, it’s probably the lowest risk profile you can have in that it’s everyone else trading on your platform.
He went on to say that the business is doing well, although he declined to comment on the size of OTPP’s investment or the shareholding.
Taylor said the investment in FTX Trading is part of the strategy to learn about the crypto business and whether it provides the right balance between risk and return.
Betting on crypto despite market downturn
Cryptocurrencies have been under extreme pressure this year, with the price of Bitcoin crashing by more than half, dragging down other digital assets.
Despite the decline, some large institutional investors have continued to bet on this asset class. Well-known asset managers are still finding new ways to cash in on investor interest, even as trading volumes and prices for Bitcoin and other cryptos have fallen.
Early last month, a $6.8 billion pension fund company in Virginia, Fairfax County Retirement Systems, announced plans to increase returns by investing in crypto-loan markets despite a crisis in the crypto industry.
Early last month, Abrdn plc, a UK-based global investment firm, entered into crypto investments by purchasing a stake in regulated UK digital asset exchange Archax.
Archax provides a platform for institutional investors to trade cryptocurrencies and tokenized securities such as fractional shares of companies. Over time, Abrdn hopes to reap “huge revenues” by giving customers access to their funds in tokenized form, as well as assets that are less readily tradable, such as private debt, private equity and buildings, on its platform.
Abrdn’s investment came as BlackRock last month launched a spot Bitcoin trust for institutional investors through a partnership with Coinbase crypto exchange.
Last month, Charles Schwab, the US brokerage and investment group, also launched an exchange-traded fund (EFT) to expose investors to crypto without actually buying the currencies.
The Schwab ETF invests in publicly traded companies that aim to profit from providing services to crypto investors or from the underlying blockchain technology.
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