Ruffer Investment Reduces Gold Exposure & Adds Bitcoin as an ‘Insurance Policy’ Against Currency Devaluation

UK-based traditional asset manager Ruffer Investment is the latest company to allocate 2.5% of its portfolio to Bitcoin.

Much like Paul Tudor Jones, MicroStrategy, Square, MassMutual, and other institutions, Ruffer uses Bitcoin as insurance against the devaluation of the world’s fiat currencies.

The company’s Bitcoin allocation was close to 2.5%, which represents about $740 million (according to a spokesperson that confirmed with CoinDesk). On the other hand, Ruffer’s parent company has £20.3 billion ($27.4 billion) in AUM. The official announcement by the company reads,

“We wanted to give shareholders a short update on performance this year and to let you know about a new allocation to the digital currency bitcoin.”

During its performance update on Dec. 15, the company noted that their portfolio made strong progress even amidst the turmoil of 2020, which was the result of gold and the inflation-linked bonds performing well, and more recently, equities reacted very positively to the success of the covid-19 vaccines, leading the portfolio higher.

The company further stated that they had made a recent addition “within the Ruffer Multi-Strategies Fund,” Bitcoin, which is “primarily a defensive move.” This allocation to Bitcoin was actually made in November “after reducing the company's exposure to gold,” it said.

It further goes on to say that their bitcoin exposure though small is a “potent insurance policy against the continuing devaluation of the world's major currencies.”

According to Ruffer, Bitcoin diversified their much larger investments in gold and inflation-linked bonds, adding that the largest cryptocurrency “acts as a hedge to some of the monetary and market risks that we see.”

The company aims to not lose money by being in cash and grow the value of their clients’ assets in the long term.

“Traditional asset managers are not buying bitcoin to dump after a short period of time. They represent the herd we've been talking about for years,” said trader and economist Alex Kruger.