By
Bena Ilyas
April 16th, 2024
Insurance giant MassMutual notes that the latest Bitcoin purchase comes as part of the company’s plan to deliver long-term value to policy owners. NYDIG will facilitate the complete Bitcoin custody for MassMutual.
Institutional investments continue to flow in Bitcoin (BTC) at an increasing rate. On Thursday, December 10, Massachusetts Mutual Life (MassMutual) announced the purchase of $100 Million worth of Bitcoin (BTC). This purchase of Bitcoins comes with the help of New York-based FinTech giant NYDIG.
Just like Grayscale, NYDIG specializes in offering asset management and custodial services for Bitcoins (BTC). Currently, it also has $2.3 billion worth of crypto assets under its management. As per the latest deal, NYDIG will offer Bitcoin custodial services to MassMutual. Moreover, as part of the deal, the insurance giant also takes $5 million of a minority stake in NYDIG.
MassMutual is a 169-year-old leading insurance company in America founded in 1851. While speaking about this recent development, Tim Corbett, Chief Investment Officer of MassMutual said:
“We believe that having an equity stake in NYDIG as well as a Bitcoin position in our general investment account will help us deliver long-term value to our policyowners. We look forward to further exploring additional ways to work with NYDIG, consistent with our ongoing focus on innovation and diversification.”
MassMutual is among the latest institutional players to warm up to Bitcoins. Over the last few weeks, many big players have MicroStrategy and Guggenheim Partners have increased their exposure to BTC. Apart from this, several veteran investors from Wall Street have also extended their support to Bitcoin.
With the changing dynamics of the global economy and the digitization of money, Bitcoin (BTC) has emerged as a potential favorite of financial institutions.
Growth of Crypto Asset Management Companies
This year proves to be a game-changing one for cryptocurrency assets management companies like NYDIG and Grayscale. With more and more institutions warming up to Bitcoin and other digital assets, the crypto asset management giants have registered skyrocketing growth. Robert Gutmann, co-founder and CEO of NYDIG, said:
“The strategic equity investment of MassMutual underscores NYDIG’s role as the leading provider of Bitcoin solutions to institutions, banks, and private clients. It also accelerates our white-label business segment, which provides bespoke implementations of our core custody, execution, financing, and AML/KYC capabilities to a rapidly expanding group of large financial institutions. We are proud of this incredible moment in the history of both Bitcoin and the insurance industry. This reflects the expansion of Bitcoin to insurance company general investment accounts, as well as NYDIG’s unique ability to meet the complex needs of the most demanding institutional investors.”
On the other hand, Grayscale has also recorded massive growth this year. Today, Grayscale manages nearly $13 billion worth of assets under management. Two of its most popular products are the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE). GBTC has over $10.5 billion of AUM while ETHE has more than $1.7 billion of AUM. The institutional participation in Bitcoin is likely to continue over the next year of 2021.