The initiative of international companies pouring funds into bitcoin has another representative in the face of the Israeli asset manager Altshuler Shaham. The company has allocated $100 million in the primary cryptocurrency through the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust in the second half of 2020.
Founded in 1990, Altshuler Shaham is among the largest investment houses in Israel, with over $50 billion in AUM as of 2020. At the end of last year, the firm has made a sizeable allocation in bitcoin, according to a local report.
It reads that the company has invested about $100 million through the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust – the world’s largest BTC fund. The coverage informed that this is the first time an Israeli institutional organization has publicly disclosed that it had put money in the cryptocurrency.
Furthermore, Altshuler Shaham’s co-CEO Gilad Altshuler said that the company completed the allocation in the second half of last year when the asset’s price traded around $21,000.
With bitcoin sitting around $55,000 now, this sizeable investment has already surged in value with an ROI of 160%.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust enables institutional investors to receive exposure to the first-ever cryptocurrency through an SEC-reporting product. It has enjoyed a steady increase in demand in the past year or so, and the total AUM in GBTC has surged to over $36 billion as of March 10th.
Just for comparison, all Grayscale products had less than $2 billion in AUM at the end of 2019.
The confirmation that an Israeli institution has poured funds into BTC comes amid a compelling time for the industry. Since the summer of 2020, numerous such organizations and corporations bought BTC with names such as MicroStrategy, MassMutual, Square, and Tesla.
What they all had in common is the country they are based in – the United States. The entrance of Altshuler Shaham, which had technically transpired before Tesla’s purchase in January, showcases that bitcoin is an international asset that could be explored and benefit from companies that could be located everywhere.
Just recently, CryptoPotato reported another similar example, in which the Chinese tech company Meitu bought 380 BTC. Moreover, the Hong Kong-listed firm went for diversification as it also purchased 15,000 ETH.
This article was first published on: Mar 11, 2021