Fairfax County Retirement Fund Invests Total of $21 Million in Blockchain VC Fund
According to a recent report, a statement has been released by Fairfax County Retirement Systems detailing the terms of its investment in a blockchain fund. This was done probably in order to clear doubts surrounding the Virginia district’s two pension funds’ decision to dive into virtual currency.
Director Clarifies
The Executive Director of the retirement systems, Jeff Weiler wrote on the county’s website that:
“Given that this technology is what has been used to create and run the cryptocurrency markets, you may be concerned that these are investments in bitcoin or other electronic currencies.”
He went ahead to reveal the exact breakdown of the firm’s commitments; 10 million dollars from the county employees’ pension and 11 million dollars from the police officers’ fund. This figures when viewed under another perspective represent just 0.3% of the employee fund’s assets and 0.8% of the police officer funds.
He continued by saying that:
“These investments were deliberately sized to be a small portion of each system’s assets, given that the blockchain technology industry is still in its early stages.”
According to an earlier report, the two pension funds are supporting investors in a 40 million dollar venture fund which was announced earlier in the week by Morgan Creek. This will be the first time institutions of this kind will be placing such bets on the crypto sector.
Investigation and Due Diligence Are Done Before Investing
While speaking on the steps taken by the pension funds to evaluate their options before investing, Weiler said that the staff and board members of both funds journeyed down to Chapel Hill, N.C., where Morgan Creek is based to meet with the team there. Morgan Creek itself made presentations whereby the proposed investments were discussed at length to the boards of the two funds at their monthly meetings.
He added that:
“County attorneys and outside investment counsel spent a lot of time and energy ironing out the details of the investment contracts, to ensure that Fairfax County’s interests were assured.”
In his note, Weiler added a summary of blockchain technology, therefore, making it known that it can be applied to more than just virtual currency, other uses include identity verification and voting.
Also, he said that all investments involve some amount of risk, but assured the public that the pension funds had reduced their risk.
