Ruffer Takes $650 Million Profit From Bitcoin Investment, Maintains BTC Exposure

The UK-based Ruffer Investment Company Limited (“Ruffer”) has revealed it sold $70 million worth of bitcoin after the value of its initial investment in the flagship cryptocurrency surged over the last few months.

In total, according to The Telegraph, the company is up by $750 million on its 2.5% bitcoin allocation made back in November through its Ruffer Multi-Strategies Fund, which reduced its gold exposure in favor of Bitcoin. The firm reportedly took profits in December and January.

Duncan MacInnes, who co-manages Ruffer, said the firm was surprised by how well the cryptocurrency performed as it “did not expect immediate fireworks.” MacInnes added:

The 2.5pc allocation we made in November across all our funds, which totalled around $600m. This has more than doubled so we decided to take out our ‘book cost’ and take $650m in profits. We still have around $700m left in and are currently up by $750m overall.

The price of bitcoin has surged from little over $11,000 back in October of last year after PayPal announced it was allowing its users buy, sell, and hold BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC on its platform. By early November, BTC was trading at $15,500 and its bull run continued until it hit a near $42,000 all-time high in January.

Bitcoin’s bull run came after a bear market that saw it plunge from a near $20,000 all-time high in December 2017 to little over $3,000 in December 2018. It then recovered gradually before jumping late last year.

MacInnes revealed Ruffer had been following bitcoin’s performance “for a few years” but was skeptical in 2017. This year, however, he said “everything has changed” and the economic environment “could not be better” for BTC.

The executive pointed to negative interest rates and bond yields throughout the world and the “war on cash ramping up because of the pandemic” as factors positive for bitcoin, along with our lives now being more digital. He added:

There are now proper regulated institutions buying in too. People are desperate for alternative safe haven assets and Bitcoin is like a digital gold. 

MacInnes concluded we are “at the foothills of a long upward trend in its institutionalisation.” Other companies investing in bitcoin include MicroStrategy, which has invested over $1 billion into the flagship cryptocurrency and holds over 71,000 coins.

As reported, last month Ruffer referred to bitcoin’s bad reputation as a “risk premium” that can have a dramatic effect on its price as “we move through the process of normalisation, regulation, and institutionalisation” of the cryptocurrency.

Featured image via Pixabay.

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