British fund manager Ruffer Investment Management last month made a bet on bitcoin now worth around 550 million pounds ($745 million), a spokesman for the company told Reuters, in one of the largest signals of rising institutional interest in the digital currency this year.
The allocation by Ruffer, which managed 20.3 billion pounds ($27.3 billion) in assets at end-November on behalf of more than 6,500 investors globally, “acts as a hedge to some of the risks that we see in a fragile monetary system and distorted financial markets,” the spokesman said via email.
The allocation was made through a third-party manager, and represents around 2.7% of Ruffer’s total assets, he added.
Bitcoin has soared by 170% this year as investors see in the cryptocurrency a hedge against the risk of inflation as governments and central banks turn on the stimulus taps, and a digital payment method that promises to go mainstream.
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