Ruffer, a London-based British asset management company, has recently disclosed that it made $1 billion from closing its BTC sales position in April after investing $600 million back in November last year.
Hamish Baillie, Investment Director at Ruffer, while speaking to The Times, made this disclosure stating their BTC bought back in November at $6oo million was sold for more than $1.1 billion profit.
“When the price doubled, we took some profits for our clients in December and early January. We actively managed the position, and by the time we sold the last tranche in April, the total profit was slightly more than $1.1 billion.”
Claiming it bought its bitcoins back in November when BTC price was hovering around $15,000 and showing signs of testing its all-time high back in 2017, Ruffer made what it called “a short-term investment” in the cryptocurrency. It went on to shoot above $63,000 in April 2021.
On ascribing the driver of its decision, Baillie said the London-based asset manager decided to hop in the bitcoin train after studying the market dynamics during last year’s stringent lockdown policies by most countries. It also said that the COVID lockdown of the previous year spurred a lot more millennials who were already more predisposed to trading cryptocurrencies than traditional stocks, which led to its decision to hedge its portfolio in BTC. Upon seeing the progressive ease in lockdowns, Baillie said his company decided to move out of the cryptocurrency market by selling off its BTC, claiming young folks would not have much time to trade cryptos as they get more active.
After making above $1.1 billion in April, Ruffer hinted it had shifted its profit realised into other “protective assets” like treasury bonds and possibly precious metals. Ruffer, through Baillie, is confident that it will continue to invest in crypto-asset classes like BTC as well as the likes of Goldman Sachs.
“If you have a multi-asset strategy, then things that behave in different ways are really helpful. There’s no point being multi-asset if all your different assets move with the same dynamics.”
Cryptocurrency market took a massive hit in May after Bitcoin hit about $63,500 across exchanges and many other crypto assets, posting insane gains for traders during the over 200 days bull run that started during Q4, 2020. Bitcoin would fall by over 50% touching $30,000 from its all-time high, while most other cryptos fell by horrific double-digit figures. In particular, most DeFi assets posted more than 80% losses in their prices from their previous all-time highs.
BTC price has tested ranges above $40K since the sharp plummet but showed resistance at that price level. It has been consolidating slightly above $34K for more than two weeks running.
As of press time, data from Bitcoin Treasuries shows that at least 36 publicly traded companies have added BTC to their balance sheets, with Microstrategy and Tesla’s investments ranking tops. Tesla also disclosed it sold just 10% of its BTC holdings to test the crypto market’s liquidity/ It made over $100 million with that trade. Its Chief Financial Officer said the tech behemoth was impressed and will continue to invest in cryptocurrencies. However, Tesla would renege on its promises a few weeks later, stating that BTC mining contributed grossly to adverse climate change. Elon Musk would later engage in a series of Twitter tirade that contributed to BTC and other crypto prices plunging deeply.