Although Ruffer’s stake in Bitcoin was short-term, the company made a significant profit.
UK-based asset management Ruffer has made more than $1 billion from its Bitcoin investments in five months. The UK-based company said one of the reasons it sold its crypto is because young people are currently not focusing on crypto trading. According to the asset manager, millennials are getting distracted from crypto trading as the lockdown eases across several countries globally. Ruffer is the first fund manager to invest in Bitcoin and subsequently make a substantial profit in such a short period of time.
Ruffer Saw About 100% Profit from Bitcoin Investment
Ruffer’s initial investment in November last year, according to investment director Hamish Baillie, was $600 million. After a month, Bitcoin’s price doubled. As the company saw nearly a 100% increase, it decided to take out its capital and an additional profit of $650 million. After this, the company still had about $700 million invested in the top coin. Baillie spoke on Ruffer’s decision on selling a part of its cryptocurrency. He commented:
When the price doubled we took some profits for our clients in December and early January. We actively managed the position and by the time we sold the last tranche in April the total profit was slightly more than $1.1 billion.
Although Ruffer’s stake in Bitcoin was short-term, the company made a significant profit. Another executive of the company expressed amazement with Bitcoin’s price performance over the past months. Bitcoin, which traded around $25,000 in December surged to more than $62,000 in mid-April.
“We’ve been surprised by how well it has done and how quickly. We did not expect immediate fireworks,” said Duncan MacInnes, co-manager of Ruffer Investment.”
According to MacInnes, he was once a skeptic about Bitcoin. However, he’s now bullish on cryptocurrency. Ruffer contacted One River Digital to buy the cryptocurrency, which according to a report, went to Coinbase to buy it.
Baillie Speaks on Bitcoin Energy Usage
Furthermore, Baillie believes that more financial institutions will continue to invest in cryptocurrencies which will eventually make it a conventional asset in the long run. He also spoke on the criticism that Bitcoin is facing with its energy consumption. This being one major reason why the crypto giant has seen a significant decrease in its value, compared to earlier in the year. He thinks it has been made a bigger deal than it actually is, he said:
“There is a lot of hyperbole and misinformation out there when it comes to bitcoin’s carbon footprint, Bitcoin uses less electricity than the gaming industry.”
At press time, Bitcoin is up 0.57% to $36,106. The cryptocurrency has dropped by 1.65%% in the past five days and further shed 34.80% in the past month. In the last three months, BTC has declined 34.49%. Additionally, Bitcoin has grown 24.53% in its year-to-date record and 271.54% in the last year.
next