Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) is reportedly open to including cryptocurrencies as part of its investment strategy at some point in the future.

QIC is Australia’s fifth-biggest superannuation pension fund and manages about AUD $92.4 billion (nearly US$70 bn) in assets.

While using superannuation to invest in crypto has been available for a few years now in Australia through self-managed super funds, this is one of the first real signs that big Aussie pension funds might be looking to gain crypto exposure.

Given the performance of commodities gold and silver over the past year, comparatively with Bitcoin, it perhaps wouldn’t be surprising to many.

Speaking with The Financial Times late last week, QIC’s head of currencies Stuart Simmons said he believes that, as long as the asset class and its industry continues to mature, large pension funds will likely make tentative moves into cryptocurrency investing.

“I don’t think there’s an inevitability about super funds and the institutional market investing in crypto,” said Simmons, “but as the segment matures . . . there’s a likelihood that super funds seek out exposure.”

 

‘Floodgates about to break’?

Simmons did, however, caveat that he thinks early inflows into crypto assets will be “more a trickle than a flood,” depending on when regulatory requirements in Australia are made clear.

Those clarifications in the form of new legislations are likely to come next year, according to recent comments from the Liberal senator Andrew Bragg.

Former Binance Australia chief executive Jeff Yew, now the head of Monochrome – one of Australia’s leading crypto fund managers – thinks a “flood” of super-fund interest will most certainly come.

In conversation with The Sydney Morning Herald last week, Yew said: “It’s inevitable. Thirty years ago, portfolio managers wouldn’t have had high-yield bonds because they’re risky, but now they’re a staple in most diversified asset portfolios.

“There is a big floodgate that’s about to break,” Yew added. “And we can hold off that flood for as long as possible but sooner or later it will come.”

Monochrome, which recently raised US$1.8 million in a Series A funding round, is launching a cryptocurrency education and research platform in order “to bridge the knowledge gap between the traditional financial world and this nascent digital asset space”.

And Yew’s 10-person, Brisbane-headquartered team is also reportedly interested in launching a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Australia – a product which could potentially drive further Australian institutional interest into the crypto-investment sector.

 

 

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