New Jersey mayor plans to invest in Bitcoin ETFs for city’s pension fund

Steven Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City since 2013, suggested he planned to allocate part of the city’s pension fund to crypto exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. 

In a July 25 X Post, Mayor Fulop said the Jersey City pension fund was updating its paperwork with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reflect an investment in Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs. Though the mayor did not explicitly state what percentage of the fund would be in crypto, he said it would be similar to the 2% allocated by the Wisconsin Pension Fund.

“I’ve been a long time believer (through ups/downs) in crypto but Broadly [sic], beyond crypto I do believe blockchain is amongst the most important new technology innovations since the internet,” said Fulop.

In May, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board reported exposure to spot Bitcoin ETFs issued by Grayscale and BlackRock. At the time, the two crypto investments totaled $164 million out of the board’s roughly $156 billion in assets. 

The SEC approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin ETFs on US exchanges in January, but of publicly-run pension funds, only those from the states of Wisconsin and Jersey City seem to be considering crypto ETFs. Mayor Fulop did not explicitly mention potentially investing in spot Ether (ETH) ETFs, which started trading in the US on July 23.

Major financial institutions Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase reported less than $1 million combined in spot Bitcoin ETF investments — a tiny fraction of the firms’ trillions of dollars in assets. Cointelegraph reached out to Mayor Fulop for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.