MassMutual to offer Bitcoin fund

MassMutual Life Investors Services, a broker dealer in cryptocurrencies, announced that it had entered into a placement agent agreement for a Bitcoin fund with NYDIG.

MassMutual believes that cryptocurrency are becoming an increasingly important part of the financial landscape. The firm released a statement saying that it is continuing to work on several initiatives to better serve clients and financial professionals.

The fund will be made available to qualified MMLIS financial professionals next week.

“MMLIS saw a growing need from our financial professionals, and their clients, to gain Bitcoin exposure,” says Daken Vanderburg (head of investments) in the statement. “This NYDIG offering is another step in expanding our product range with the goal to ensure that our clients and financial professionals have the tools they need for building broad-based portfolios.”

Ric Edelman is a cryptocurrency advisor and board member at Edelman Financial Engines. He said that MassMutual’s Bitcoin fund is a recent example of how Bitcoins and digital assets are becoming mainstream.

He says that MassMutual’s actions have increased the pressure on other financial service companies to follow suit. This will be commonplace in a short time.

This asset class will be made available to clients by every financial service industry firm, including broker dealers, mutual fund companies, banks, and insurance companies. Edelman states that this is great news for not only the financial services industry but also for their advisors and their clients, who need to have access to this asset class and the guidance and support from the advisory community to help them make the right decisions for their situation.

Tyrone Ross, CEO of Onramp Invest, believes a Bitcoin fund can be an accessible and easy way to gain exposure to Bitcoin. However, he wouldn’t recommend it.

“It’s almost as if it’s a fast-food version of Bitcoin. You give it to you, and I pull it off. It doesn’t take much time to prepare it and I don’t need to keep an eye on the temperature. He says that he doesn’t know if this is a good way to go. “I believe in buying the underlying directly and holding it.” This doesn’t necessarily mean the fund isn’t a good option for everyone. MassMutual clients are not our clients, but I don’t like the Bitcoin fund structure. It’s not possible to take something so elegant and decentralized and make it into a product.

MassMutual invested $5 million in NYDIG last year. The firm also made a $100 million Bitcoin investment for its general investment account. This was in a transaction that NYDIG facilitated, it says.

Robert Gutmann, cofounder and CEO NYDIG, stated that MsssMutual’s equity investment “underscores NYDIG’s role as a leading provider of Bitcoin solutions for institutions, banks and private clients.” It also speeds up our white-label segment, which offers bespoke implementations and financing of our core custody, execution and financing capabilities to a rapidly growing group of large financial institutions.