American pension funds that bought shares of Strategy, the biggest public company holding Bitcoin, lost a lot of money because the stock price fell a lot.
Experts counted that 11 U.S. state pension funds together owned almost 1.8 million shares in Strategy. Today those shares are worth about $240 million, but when the funds bought them, they were worth about $577 million. This means the value dropped by about 60%.
The New York state pension fund lost the most — about $53 million (around 60% of its investment). Other big losses included:
- Florida pension system: about $46 million lost
- Wisconsin investment board: about $26 million lost
- North Carolina treasury: about $30 million lost
- Police and firefighter pension plan in New Jersey: about $8 million lost
- Utah pension system: about $5.5 million lost
- Kentucky pension system: about $3 million lost
- Maryland pension system: about $2.4 million lost
- Michigan pension fund lost less — about $100,000 (about 8% down).
On Thursday, Strategy shares were trading around $129, and their price has fallen more than 20% in the last month and about 50% since the high in October.
A financial company Fidelity says that the crypto market could be worth about $4.7 trillion for pension plans in the future. Some experts like Matt Hougan from Bitwise say investors should not be afraid to include Bitcoin in retirement plans because traditional stocks can also go down a lot.