A Korean retirement fund with a scale of 30 trillion yuan holds Coinbase and micro strategy stocks; Urgent clarification: It's not because of cryptocurrency!

The National Pension Corporation (NPS), a South Korean retirement fund with an asset management scale of 1147 trillion Korean won (approximately 30 trillion New Taiwan dollars), was recently questioned about the scale and proportion of indirect investments in virtual assets.

According to South Korean media reports, the National Pension Corporation of South Korea has invested in the Coinbase exchange and holds a large amount of cryptocurrency related stocks such as IT company MicroStrategy, which holds a large amount of Bitcoin.

However, regarding this matter, the group emphasized to National Power Party member Bai Zongxian that this move is not for the purpose of investing in virtual assets, and stated that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are not investment targets. The company explained that these stocks were included in the investment portfolio only because they were included in the benchmark index.

The National Pension Corporation stated that there are two main methods for overseas stock investment: one is index based investment that passively tracks the benchmark MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International Index); Another approach is to entrust external investment institutions to invest in individual enterprises. According to the National Pension Corporation, the Coinbase and Micro Strategy stocks held by the corporation were automatically bought because they were included in the benchmark index or purchased through outsourcing investments.

According to data from the National Pension Corporation, as of March this year, the corporation holds 280000 shares of Coinbase stock with a market value of approximately 100.9 billion Korean won (approximately 2.3 billion Taiwanese dollars); The number of micro strategy stocks held during the same period was 200, with a market value of approximately 400 million Korean won (about 9 million Taiwanese dollars).

The market generally believes that the National Pension Corporation's purchase of Coinbase stocks last year and micro strategy stocks this year can actually be interpreted as an indirect investment in virtual assets, especially Bitcoin. However, the National Pension Corporation denies this and states:

Recent media reports have interpreted these investment records as indirect investments, but the National Pension did not purchase stocks of these companies for the purpose of investing in virtual currencies

As for whether to plan to sell the stocks of these two companies or impose restrictions on their investments, the National Pension Corporation responded: "If restrictions are to be imposed on investments in specific industries or companies, it needs to be decided by the Fund Operating Committee. If we want to track indicators that do not include virtual currency related companies, the Fund Operating Committee needs to approve the investment restriction plan of the relevant companies and adjust the benchmark index accordingly