Blockchain
Jersey City to Invest in Bitcoin ETF, Latest Pension Fund to Dive Into Crypto
Jersey City, New Jersey’s municipal pension fund will soon invest in bitcoin through exchange-traded funds, according to a social media post Thursday by Mayor Steven Fulop.
While it’s unlikely to be a gigantic sum, the decision is another symbolic victory for cryptocurrency on its path to wider adoption. The move follows a Wisconsin pension fund that made a similar decision earlier this year.
Fulop, mayor of Jersey City since 2013, took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce the upcoming investment, writing: “Not my usual topic of conversation for a post, but I’ll share the issue anyway if [c]rypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is largely over [and] cryptocurrency/Bitcoin won.”
Fulop, a Democrat, is running for New Jersey’s 2025 gubernatorial seat. Incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, has already served two terms and is not eligible for reelection.
Fulop added that the city’s pension fund, the Employees Retirement System of Jersey City, is currently in the process of updating its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allocate a percentage of the fund to bitcoin. (BTC) ETF. According to Fulop’s tweet, the investment is expected to be completed “by the end of the summer.”
While Fulop did not specify exactly how much of the pension funds’ assets under management will be allocated to bitcoin ETFs, he said it would be “similar” to the 2% allocation to bitcoin ETFs made by Wisconsin’s state pension fund earlier this year. Fulop did not specify which Jersey City bitcoin ETF he was considering selecting for his investment.
“I have always been a supporter (through thick and thin) of cryptocurrencies, but [b]on the road, beyond encryption [I] “We believe blockchain is one of the most important technological innovations since the Internet,” Fulop said.
Interest in Bitcoin among public pension funds is slowly but surely growing.
Wisconsin’s public pension plan, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, which has about $156 billion in assets under management, is the largest pension plan to invest in cryptocurrency so far, investing $160 million in spot bitcoin ETFs earlier this year. Some smaller pension funds, such as the Houston Firefighters’ Relief and Retirement Fund, which has about $5 billion in assets under management, have been investing in cryptocurrency for several years.
Even Fairfax County, Virginia, pensions have invested in cryptocurrencies through VanEck’s New Finance Income Fund, which he became a creditor to cryptocurrency firm Genesis, which filed for bankruptcy last year.
Outside the United States, public pension funds, including Japan’s $1.4 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund, the world’s largest pension fund, sent out a request for information about bitcoin investments earlier this year.
“I’m sure it will become more common eventually,” Fulop said in his tweet about pension funds investing in cryptocurrencies.
At the time of publication, the Jersey City mayor’s office did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.