The National Pension Service (NPS) of South Korea, with an asset management scale of 1,147 trillion 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 NPS has invested in the Coinbase exchange and holds a significant amount of shares in IT company MicroStrategy, which is related to cryptocurrencies.
However, in response to this matter, the NPS emphasized to the People Power Party member Baek Jong-hyun that this action "is not for the purpose of investing in virtual assets" and stated that "cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are not investment targets." The NPS explained that these stocks were included in the investment portfolio simply because they are part of the benchmark index.
The NPS stated that in terms of overseas stock investments, it mainly employs two methods: one is passive tracking of the benchmark index MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International Index) through index investments; the other is commissioning external investment institutions to invest in individual companies. According to the NPS, the shares of Coinbase and MicroStrategy it holds were automatically purchased because they were included in the benchmark index or acquired through outsourced investments.
According to data from the NPS, as of March this year, it held 280,000 shares of Coinbase, with a market value of approximately 100.9 billion won (about 2.3 billion New Taiwan dollars); during the same period, it held 200 shares of MicroStrategy, with a market value of approximately 400 million won (about 9 million New Taiwan dollars).
The market generally believes that the NPS's purchase of Coinbase shares last year and MicroStrategy shares this year can indeed be interpreted as indirect investments in virtual assets, especially Bitcoin. However, the NPS denied this, stating:
"Recent media reports interpret these investment records as indirect investments, but the National Pension Service did not purchase these companies' stocks for the purpose of investing in virtual currencies."
As for whether there are plans to sell the stocks of these two companies or to impose restrictions on their investments, the NPS responded: "If there is a need to restrict investments in specific industries or companies, it must be decided by the Fund Operation Committee. If the goal is to track an index that does not include companies related to virtual currencies, the Fund Operation Committee must approve the investment restriction plan for the relevant companies and adjust the benchmark index accordingly."