Ruffer Investment Confirms Massive Bitcoin Buy of $744M

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16 December 2020

U.K.-based Ruffer confirmed the size of its tremendous bitcoin investment from November in an email to CoinDesk Wednesday.

  • "Ruffer's exposure to bitcoin currently totals around £550m, equivalent to around 2.7% of the firm's assets under management," a spokesperson told CoinDesk in an email.
  • Based on current exchange rates, £550 million is worth $744.26 million or roughly 45,000 BTC based on November 2020 prices.
  • The investment was "primarily a protective move for portfolios" to "act as a hedge" against "some of the risks that we see in a fragile monetary system and distorted financial markets."
  • Ambiguous wording in Ruffer's initial shareholder memo created uncertainty whether the investment was 2.5% of the multi-strategy fund or 2.5% of the funds total more than $20 billion in managed assets.
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