The South Korean government seems to be on a buying spree. The National Pension Service (NPS), the third-largest public pension fund in the world, purchased $34 million or 46 billion won worth of shares in MicroStrategy (MSTR).
Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy is a prominent holder of Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
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NPS Investments and Global Comparisons
South Korea’s NPS revealed that it bought 245,000 MSTR stocks during the year’s second quarter. The price of MSTR stock has increased by 92% so far this year, but most of those gains occurred in the first quarter. This represents 0.04% of the US stock portfolio NPS has directly invested in.
NPS Assets and Global Comparison
It should be mentioned that the NPS in South Korea has assets totaling more than $777 billion, or one trillion won. As of 2023, the assets of the Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan stood at approximately $1.5 trillion, making it the largest pension fund globally. With little more than $1.3 trillion, the Government Pension Fund of Norway comes in second.
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MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Holdings
According to recent data, MicroStrategy is the public firm that owns the most Bitcoin. It holds about 13 times as much as Marathon Digital, the biggest Bitcoin miner worldwide. The firm has over 226,500 BTC, which is worth around $13.19 billion.
NPS’ Other Investments
NPS from South Korea has already expressed interest in investing in publicly traded cryptocurrency equities in the US. In the third quarter of 2023, NPS initiated its direct participation in the cryptocurrency industry by acquiring 282,673 Coinbase (COIN) stock shares.
At that point, the price of a share of COIN was $78; by the end of the second quarter, it had increased dramatically to $222.
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In addition, it has invested $61.5 million in Jack Dorsey’s Block, followed by a $31.5 million investment in Roblox.