Australia's First Major Fund Goes Crypto: AMP's $27 Million BTC Buy Sees 66% Gains

• AMP's investment in Bitcoin has already yielded 66% returns
• Bitcoin's price surged from $60,000 to $100,000 since May
• Other funds in the region are considering digital assets too

The year 2024 has marked several big-time Bitcoin investments by publicly traded companies. Following Microstrategy’s steps, several industry leaders like Amazon and Microsoft are pondering Bitcoin investments as a means to boost liquidity to its reserves.

And now, one of Australia's largest fund managers, AMP, just made a major investment in cryptocurrencies. Recent reports reveal that the company purchased over $27 million worth of Bitcoin.

After this major purchase, AMP now holds 0.05% of its total funds in BTC. In total, the company manages over $57 billion.

The company’s CIO Anna Shelley told the Australian Financial Review that the Bitcoin investment was made around May of this year when BTC traded at around $60,000. With Bitcoin currently trading at around $100,000—this means that AMP has already made a substantial 66% yield from their initial investment.

Furthermore, this development also marks the first major fund manager in Australia to invest in Bitcoin. Other funds in the region have already told AFR that they also plan on Buying digital assets in the future. 

There are a handful of reasons why companies are looking to invest in Bitcoin and not all of them are only in hopes that BTC will go up. For starters, buying digital assets adds immediately liquidity to the company’s funds, making it more agile in responding to market changes and financial needs.

Also, assets like Bitcoin can serve as a hedge against inflation, protecting some of the funds from sudden spikes of volatility. Albeit digital assets are volatile in nature—this argument gains strength for a company like AMP which has already seen 60% profits in its BTC holdings—giving these funds a lot more leeway to survive inflationary periods than traditional currencies and assets.