$500 Billion German Asset Manager Considers Adding Bitcoin to Existing Funds

Union Investment – the investment arm of the DZ bank group – takes another small step towards offering crypto investment services to private investors. They will make Bitcoin a small percentage of some of their funds. 

Union Invest’s Experimentation With Crypto

As reported to Bloomberg news, portfolio manager David Barthe said that the company was considering adding Bitcoin to their funds in small amounts, comprising 1-2% of their portfolios. This will be starting at an unknown date in Q4.

This comes after the company included cryptocurrency within a mixed fund called Private Funds Flexible Pro for the first time at the start of this year. These came in the form of Delta 1 certificates. A Delta certificate gives investors exposure to an asset as if they were to directly own the asset themselves. 

Kamil Kaczmarski, a consultant for financial service providers at Oliver Wyman, says that his company has noticed greater interest among mixed fund managers in cryptocurrencies as of late. 

Union Investment currently has about $500 billion in assets under management.

Access to Crypto for the Masses

Developments such as those at Union Investment are just one of many that are making exposure to cryptocurrencies easier for the average person. As further help for Germans, S Broker recently issued a combination of 40 Bitcoin certificates, Stocks, and ETFs allowing customers to invest in a wide array of Cryptocurrency assets. 

That said, access to a Bitcoin ETF in the United States may have to wait. The SEC currently has no plans to approve such an institution and may even wait until 2023 before considering that as a priority.

There are other ways of spreading Bitcoin exposure, however. ATM installations have been soaring in recent months, offering wallet owners a familiar method for buying and selling Bitcoin. According to the stats, most of these installations have been taking place in the United States.