Insurance Giant MassMutual Buys $100 Million of Bitcoin

Insurance giant Massachusetts Mutual recently unveiled a $100 million investment in Bitcoin (BTCUSD) for its general investment account. The company purchased its Bitcoin through the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) and took a $5 million minority equity stake in the fund management outfit. In a press release, MassMutual said that the investment gives it a “measured yet meaningful exposure to a growing economic aspect of our increasingly digital world.”

Why MassMutual’s Entry Into Bitcoin Is Significant

Among institutional investors that have put money into Bitcoin, Massachusetts Mutual is a special case for a couple of reasons. First, it is a conservative investor, meaning it only makes investments in tried-and-tested financial products or those that are investment grade.

MassMutual CEO Roger Crandall told Yahoo! Finance recently that the firm’s investment portfolio was geared toward a “long-term approach” and mainly consisted of investment-grade fixed-income instruments, real estate, and equities. This approach is important to ensure that the company has a steady income stream to pay out its annuities and claims. Those commitments can work out to a tidy sum: in the past year alone, the company paid out $5.7 billion in claims. MassMutual’s purchase of Bitcoin marks the entry of a prudent investor into a market that is infamous for its volatility.

Second, MassMutual’s Bitcoin bet example could encourage other companies from conservative sectors, such as insurance and pension funds, to enter the market. “MassMutual’s Bitcoin purchases represent another milestone in the Bitcoin adoption by institutional investors. One can see the potential demand that could arise over the coming years as other insurance companies and pension funds follow MassMutual’s example,” wrote a team of strategists, including Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, at investment bank JPMorgan.

According to the note from the JPMorgan strategists, allocation of just 1{de3fc13d4eb210e6ea91a63b91641ad51ecf4a1f1306988bf846a537e7024eeb} of funds from pension companies and insurance companies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan would move $600 billion of institutional funds into cryptocurrencies. At current valuations, that amount represents almost the entire market capitalization of cryptocurrencies today.

For the investors themselves, putting money into cryptocurrency might represent a well-thought-out diversification away from fixed-income assets into ones that offer substantial returns. Low to negative interest rates combined with a volatile macro environment have diminished returns from traditional instruments, such as government bonds, in recent years. On the other hand, volatile assets, such as the stock market, have become popular instruments to multiply capital. Bitcoin and crypto markets could become a viable treasury instrument in the future.

However, it is important to remember that MassMutual’s Bitcoin investment equates to a rounding error on its balance sheet, given that it has more than $275 billion assets under management. While returns from its Bitcoin investment could boost its balance sheet, the cryptocurrency’s volatility could dissuade the company from making further commitments into the asset class. Until cryptocurrency markets and infrastructure become stable channels for exchange of value between participants, firms like MassMutual might be content simply to dip their toes in crypto instead of committing to it.