‘Can’t be ignored’: Hostplus, Square Peg open to crypto investments

Hostplus, the $66 billion super fund for hospitality workers, says it is open to increasing its exposure to cryptocurrencies as one of the top Australian venture capitalists it has backed said the asset class cannot be ignored.

Hostplus’ chief investment officer Sam Sicilia told the Intersekt financial technology conference in Melbourne on Thursday he could not rule out increasing the fund’s exposure to cryptocurrencies. Any investment would probably be through a venture capital fund such as Paul Bassat’s Square Peg Capital, which has attracted significant investment from the hospitality industry super fund.

“We would allocate capital to venture capital managers and they in term would make investments in either cryptocurrencies or hopefully the blockchain itself as the appropriate platform if they think that’s the right thing to do,” Mr Sicilia said. “It’s not so much of a capital question it’s really whether there’s an investment opportunity here.”

Mr Sicilia said the key questions for investors in crypto were what problem was trying to be solved, how stable the currencies are and how sustainable they are from an environmental perspective. “If all of those are positive responses I see no reason why anything should be excluded from potential investment,” he said.

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