An investment fund that manages a portion of Stanford University’s expendable funds pool has as much as 7% of its portfolio dedicated to Bitcoin (BTC) investments.
On March 5, computer science major and leader at the Stanford Blockchain Club Kole Lee announced that the university’s student-run Blyth Fund allocated around 7% of the portfolio to BTC following his pitch to the fund in February.
The fund “has bought Bitcoin at $45,000,” he said before adding that he pitched BlackRock’s IBIT exchange-traded fund (ETF) to the Blyth Fund.
His arguments, “which tried to remain as objectively bullish as possible while catering to an audience of skeptics,” revolved around three key factors: ETF inflows, crypto market cycles and a hedge against “monetary chaos and war,” he said.
The student-led fund, established in 1978 in honor of legendary banker Charles Blyth, manages a six-figure portion of Stanford’s Expendable Funds Pool by investing in stocks, bonds and other assets, which now include BTC.
Lee told Cointelegraph that the Blyth Fund is a student-run investment club “committed to their members investing within their skill sets and passions” before adding:
Lee speculated that when the all-time high of $69,000 is broken, “billions of shorts will be covered, and people will become excited at ATHs, enhancing a volatile move to the upside.”
Meanwhile, asset manager BlackRock filed an amendment with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on March 4 to incorporate Bitcoin exposure in its Strategic Income Opportunities Fund (BSIIX).
It stated that it may purchase shares in funds that have direct exposure to the price of BTC.
The fixed-income SIO fund currently has $36.5 billion in assets under management, according to BlackRock.
Related: Grayscale’s GBTC Bitcoin holdings have fallen 33% since its conversion
The firm’s recently launched spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, is the best-performing of the newly launched batch of 10 funds. This week, it surpassed $11 billion in assets under management and had an inflow of $420 million on March 4.
This article was corrected on March 6 to reflect that the Blyth Fund is not part of the Stanford Endowment but part of the Expendable Funds Pool for Stanford.
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