This story was migrated from our old blog, originally published on July 19th, 2021.
New Blog
This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
(BONUS) German Institutional Funds Will Not Invest Big Bugs in Cryptocurrencies
This is another bonus episode, where we cover interesting — behind the scenes — development in the larger German-speaking tech space. Recently there was a wave of excitement sweeping across the crypto blogs, due to an update in the German Investment Law (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/kagb/). The reason: Investments of German institutional funds, since they could — theoretically — invest up to 20% in cryptocurrencies, starting on August 2nd, 2021. Joe gets together with Marco; a specialist lawyer and they talk about what is realistic. Instead of a large wave (theoretical max of ~400 bn €), as many blogs forecast, there may be only a small trickle (likely only millions over time).
Tune in to our Internet Radio Station here:
Subscribe Here
Find all options to subscribe to our newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel, or listen to our internet radio station here:
The Specialist
Marco Zingler (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marco-zingler-14b2a390/) is a seasoned lawyer, with almost 10 years of experience in capital markets legislation. He also holds a degree in Finance. He, therefore, spent most of his career as a specialist for regulatory and investment law, covering for example the changes to the new German investment Law.
Joes Blog Post, his Basis for Argumentation
Over the last weeks, we have read a lot of blog posts about German institutional funds pouring billions of Euros in cryptocurrencies. We are sure, not a lot will change.
Let us take you along our train of thought. First, let’s get some specifications out of the way:
Spezialfonds are institutional-only funds in Germany. That is what we are talking about. They are a very lightly regulated vehicle only for institutional investors to invest in almost everything. These investors include every kind of entity from the highly sophisticated and globally active re-insurer to the locally-focused charity.
Opposed to that are mutual funds, open to the public (known as UCITS or OGAW), umbrella funds, ETFs, and hedge funds.
If one looks at the regulation, institutional funds can invest in almost anything and there are almost 2,1 trn € (~2,37 trn US$). Note: During the interview, Joe talks about 1.8 trn Euros, but he refers to the time the law started to be crafted (2019). There will soon be the option to invest up to 20% of the funds’ assets in crypto assets, since a new investment law comes into force on August 2nd, 2021. This is what excites the market. We now present you with several arguments that there is no big wave of institutional investments coming to crypto markets any time soon from Germany. If there is any investment at all, it may drip over years to come.
Regulation
What one needs to understand to put this in perspective: The highest and most stringent level of regulation is not on the level of the fund, but on the level of the institutional investors, mostly banks, insurance companies, pension funds, nonprofits, foundations, and government entities.
If nothing important changes on the level of the investor e.g. regulation or risk appetite, there will be only a very small fraction of the possible investments cited by others (e.g. https://decrypt.co/69323/damn-huge-germany-opens-up-to-institutional-crypto-funds).
Current Investment Behavior
Just to understand the risk appetite of these investors better, let us take a look at the institutional funds in Germany invested in April 2021 — the most recent statistic published by Bundesbank:
g. Germany’s central retirement scheme paid 355 mn € in negative interest to keep the money safe on bank accounts. https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/strafzinsen-die-deutsche-rentenversicherung-muss-hunderte-millionen-euro-zahlen_id_12960184.html
74% of all institutional fund assets in Germany are denominated in Euros, so there is no FX risk
3% of the total assets are invested in equities directly. One also needs to know that in prior years, before the surge in stock markets the average equities quota has been 15,9% for 2019 and 2020.
Risk Appetite
One also has to understand that cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile. Volatility is a risk for institutional investors, which they have teams of risk managers to minimize. This is also required by regulation e.g. for social security entities investing in institutional funds they have to make sure not to lose money over, more than focus on any potential gains.
Career perspective
“Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” Is a saying in asset management. It refers to what many fund managers do: Buy conservative investments rather than having to explain losses to investors.
Given the current volatility of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin it can only be a career-ending move to recommend large or relatively large investments in cryptocurrencies right now, given the potential for losses. This holds true for the investment managers and risk managers.
A more realistic view
Hedge funds are a thing in Germany and regulated under the past and the new investment law. As of April 2021, there have been 5,17 bn € invested in these hedge funds. This is 0,26% of the assets invested in institutional funds. Note: Both are different regulated entities under German law, but Hedge Funds are a good gauge for the possible risk profile and volatility in the crypto market.
Therefore, our assumption would be to expect investments the size of fractions of hedge funds in the crypto market from German institutional funds over the coming years in cryptocurrencies, which may amount to several millions or even tens of millions each year, but far away from the hailed billions.
Even hedge funds in Europe and UK (not known to be shying away from risk) expect only 7% exposure to crypto https://www.igniteseurope.com/c/3213574/406163/european_hedge_funds_expect_crypto_exposure
The Video Interview is set to go live on Tuesday, 20th of July 2021, at 17.00 CET
The Audio Interview Podcast
You can subscribe to our podcasts here. Find our podcast on your favorite podcasting app or platform. Here are some of the links to subscribe.
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Castbox
Global Podcast Network (Formerly NY City Podcast Network)
Good Pods
Are You Looking to get a Task Quickly Done? — Affiliate Links
Try the account of our Affiliate Partner Fiverr: http://bit.ly/2S0f2YF We get there our video editing and graphic work done to free us up for more useful tasks
Feedback
Reach out to us, here is our audience survey, to give us feedback, suggest topics, interview partners or just to say “Hallo!” https://forms.gle/mLV6mVKwGwKuut8BA
The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
Keep Up to Date
Here is our publication calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=MDEyaTI3YWs1MjVxaTNzbWdqbDh2OXRiaW9AZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ
Comments