Japan’s state pension fund is exploring bitcoin as an investment

Japan’s state pension fund said on Tuesday it wanted information on “illiquid assets” such as bitcoinas part of an investigation into potential new investments.

Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) of Japan, the world’s largest pension fund by assets under management in several different rankings, said it was looking for “basic information” about illiquid assets other than those in which it already invests.

GPIF said it currently invests in domestic and foreign bonds and stocks, real estate, infrastructure and private equity. He is now looking into other assets such as forests, farmland, gold and bitcoin and how they can be included in pension fund portfolios.

There is no indication that the GPIF will invest in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

GPIF’s announcement comes days after Bitcoin hit an all-time high and after the world’s largest cryptocurrency has risen more than 130% in the past year.

That rally is thanks in part to the launch of exchange-traded bitcoin funds in the US this year, which has attracted billions of dollars in inflows.

Pension funds are very cautious about entering cryptocurrency investments due to the volatile nature of the latter. Some have given up though, with South Korea’s pension fund — the National Pension Service — buying shares in Coinbase last year.

In Japan, the government in February proposed a law that, if passed, would allow investment funds to hold digital assets such as cryptocurrencies.