MassMutual Joins the Bitcoin Club With $100 Million Purchase
MassMutual Joins the Bitcoin Club With $100 Million Purchase
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. bought $100 million of bitcoin for its general investment account, the latest sign of mainstream acceptance for the upstart digital currency.
The investment is a tiny one for the Springfield, Mass.-based insurance company whose general investment account totaled nearly $235 billion as of Sept. 30. But it signifies further momentum for bitcoin, which has surged this fall . The price of a single bitcoin peaked in late November at $19,835, topping its 2017 high, and currently trades around $18,000, up 150% year-to-date.
MassMutual purchased the bitcoin through a New York-based fund management company called NYDIG, which has about $2.3 billion of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies under management. MassMutual also acquired a $5 million minority equity stake in NYDIG, which was formerly known as New York Digital Investment Group.
The insurance company, founded in 1851, said the bitcoin investment was based on a broad strategy to take advantage of new opportunities while remaining diversified, “giving us measured yet meaningful exposure to a growing economic aspect of our increasingly digital world.”
Bitcoin, launched in January 2009 , is a software program that operates across a network of linked but independent computers. It allows any two people to exchange value directly without the use of a middleman like a bank.
