One of Bitcoin’s oldest mining companies is now giving accredited investors around the world alternative exposure to Bitcoin.
Bitfury, a Bitcoin mining and emerging technologies company, announced today the launch of its institutional investor program, which will give high-net-worth individuals and firms an alternative investment vehicle to gain exposure to Bitcoin.
The program is open to international institutional investors. Global as the alternative investment may be, the data-centers the investors will be putting money behind are located in North America, Norway, Iceland and Central Asia, which are primarily used to mine Bitcoin but can be modified to suit many high-compute hardware.
The blog says that investment vehicles like this are necessary for building out a robust and mature market structure to give high-net-worth investors a form of exposure to Bitcoin that they are comfortable with. Right now, the Bitcoin investment vehicles accredited investors are most comfortable with are derivatives like futures and options contracts; typically, these high-rollers don’t want to buy bitcoin on spot for fear of moving the market too much too quickly (or for losing millions of dollars of internet currency by mismanaging wallets and keys).
Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov said over email that this the product will help those institutional players overcome Bitcoin investing obstacles, but it may be specifically beneficial for family offices.
“While this offering is attractive to different types of accredited investors, we believe one of the groups that will benefit most from this offering is family offices. Our streamlined avenue to diversification is designed specifically for their portfolios – exposure to digital assets without any of the operational/technical requirements of holding the digital assets/infrastructure themselves.”
This news comes after a gust of positive headlines regarding Bitcoin’s slow-but-steady integration into Wall Street circles. Goldman Sachs
Vavilov said that the above exposure, coupled with institutional products like Bitfury’s, will help propel Bitcoin to great prestige among former skeptics.
“Bitcoin’s legitimacy as an investment vehicle is absolutely growing. Digital assets like bitcoin are becoming more attractive to high net worth investors because of their long-term use and store of value,” he said.
“However, these investors were previously “locked out” of being able to invest at scale, because it required extensive set-up and operational knowledge, and/or holding large amounts of bitcoin. The introduction of institutional offerings like Bitfury’s program introduces bitcoin to an influential audience, helping solidify it as an asset class and shoring up support for the network’s continued expansion.”
