Multi-Billion Dollar Billion Firm Ruffer Explains Its $745 Million Bitcoin Bet

Guernsey-based asset manager Ruffer is reassuring its investors that the company remains confident in its “unconventional” Bitcoin investment. 

The firm, which manages $20.3 billion in assets and has offices in London and Paris, announced in December that it allocated 2.5% of its Multi-Strategies Fund to Bitcoin. That amounts to roughly £550 million in Bitcoin, or about $746 million at today’s exchange rate.

Ruffer also has exposure to Bitcoin via two proxy equities: companies MicroStrategy and Galaxy Digital. Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy currently holds around $2.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in its reserve, while Galaxy holds nearly $600 million.

Now, with Bitcoin’s price up, the firm is pleased—and considers its move ahead of the curve. 

“Our rationale has been well publicised but briefly, we have a history of using unconventional protections in our portfolio,” said Ruffer in its year-end review. “This is another example, a small allocation to an idiosyncratic asset class which we think brings something significantly different to the portfolio.”

“We think we are relatively early to this, at the foothills of a long trend of institutional adoption and financialisation of Bitcoin,” it added. 

Ruffer said that its investment was “small but meaningful” and thinks of the asset’s (sometimes) bad reputation as a “risk premium.” 

The company in December joined a number of institutional investors—such as hedge funds and tech firms—to invest in the asset. 

Ruffer’s reason is that the currency will be the saving grace when the world’s major currencies struggle. 

Ruffer’s chairman, Jonathan Ruffer, said last week that the asset is “seemingly nonsensical”—but one that “makes absolute sense for how we see the world.” He added that Bitcoin is “becoming a challenger to gold’s standing as the one supra-currency.”

Ruffer’s clients are mainly individuals and families, pension funds and charities, according to their website.