• Jersey Mayor Steven Fulop plans to invest his retirement funds in Bitcoin ETFs.
• Fulop likened the investment to the Wisconsin State Retirement Fund’s 2% cryptocurrency allocation.
• SEC-approved Bitcoin ETFs are rarely adopted by major financial institutions.

Jersey Mayor Steven Fulop announced plans to invest a portion of the city’s retirement fund in a Bitcoin ETF.

Fulop, who has served since 2013, revealed on July 25 that the city’s pension fund was updating its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to incorporate the new investment strategy.

Mayor Fulop’s Vision for Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies

In a statement shared on X, Mayor Fulop expressed his long-term belief in the potential of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. He did not specify the exact percentage of the fund allocated to Bitcoin ETFs, but said it would be comparable to the Wisconsin State Retirement Fund’s 2% allocation.

Fulop emphasized his confidence in the transformative power of blockchain, describing it as one of the most important technological innovations since the Internet.

This isn’t my normal topic in posts, but I’ll share it anyway – the question of whether crypto/Bitcoin is here to stay is largely over + crypto/Bitcoin won. this #jerseycity Retirement fund is updating SEC filings to allocate % of fund to Bitcoin ETF…

— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) July 25, 2024

Jersey City: Following Wisconsin’s Footsteps in Bitcoin ETF Investments

Fulop’s move brings Jersey City into line with the Wisconsin Investment Commission, which reported exposure to Grayscale and BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF launched in May. At the time, Wisconsin had $164 million in cryptocurrency investments out of approximately $156 billion in assets.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin ETFs on U.S. exchanges in January, paving the way for such investments.

However, public pension funds have been slow to adopt this strategy, with only Wisconsin and Jersey City currently considering crypto ETFs.

Interestingly, Mayor Fulop did not mention any plans to invest in the Ethereum spot ETF, which began trading in the United States on July 23.

Major financial institutions such as Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase have made only minimal investments in spot Bitcoin ETFs, totaling less than $1 million, a tiny fraction of their massive portfolios.

Mayor Fulop’s move marks an important step for Jersey City and could set a precedent for other cities to explore similar investments in the emerging cryptocurrency space.