👉 Background: AMP (formerly known as Australian Mutual Provident Society) is one of Australia’s oldest financial services companies founded in 1849. It has around $57 billion worth of superannuation assets under management.

👉 What happened: Now, AMP has announced it invested $27 million from its super fund into bitcoin back in May — when the price was between $60,000 - $70,000 USD.

👉 What else: Other super funds like Australian Super and Australian Retirement Trust have dismissed crypto investments because they reckon crypto is too volatile and it doesn’t offer a yield. But, this step by AMP (and their 30% uplift in their investment so far) might just drive other super funds to dip their toes in the crypto-waters too.

What's the key learning?

💡Cryptocurrency is no longer a fringe asset class— especially when traditionally cautious industries like super funds are getting in on the act.

💡AMP only allocated 0.05% portion of its investment portfolio into bitcoin, so it’s not meaningful from a risk perspective. But, this investment has enabled AMP to minimise its downside while still gaining some exposure to a high-growth and very volatile sector.

💡This isn't the first industry that Australian super funds have been hesitant to invest into. Previously, super funds believed that venture capital was too risky. But in 2014, Hostplus made its first investment in the VC space and a small startup called Canva which grew from a $94 million investment to over $1.9 billion in value. Since then, other super funds like AustralianSuper and HESTA have also invested in VC funds and startups.