Ontario Teachers’ — one of the world’s largest pension funds — says that it invested $95M in troubled crypto exchange FTX. Here's how to bet on digital currency if you're still a believer

The pension giant said that the FTX investment was made through its Teachers’ Venture Growth platform, which was established in 2019 to “invest in emerging technology companies raising late-stage venture and growth capital.”

While the speculative bet didn’t pay off — venture capital firm Sequoia Capital recently marked its investment in FTX down to $0 — it’s not the end of the world for the pension plan.

“While there is uncertainty about the future of FTX, any financial loss on this investment will have limited impact on the Plan, given this investment represents less than 0.05% of our total net assets,” OTPP said in a statement.

On Friday morning, FTX posted on Twitter that the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

It’s a tough time for investors. But if you still believe in the future of crypto, here are three ways to gain exposure.

Buy bitcoin

The liquidity crunch at FTX has triggered a sell-off in the crypto world. Bitcoin, for instance, has plunged 19% over the last five days, bringing its year-to-date loss to a painful 65%.

But as the world’s largest cryptocurrency, bitcoin still has a huge following and an increasing number of companies worldwide are using it.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor recently said that bitcoin is “100x better than gold.” If bitcoin reaches the size of gold as an asset class, Saylor predicts that it could go to $500,000 a coin.

Considering where bitcoin is trading right now, $500,000 implies a potential upside of over 2,800%.

If you share this view, you can buy bitcoin directly.

These days, many platforms allow individual investors to buy and sell crypto. Just be aware that some exchanges charge up to 4% commission fees for each transaction. So look for investment apps that charge low or even no commissions.

While bitcoin commands a five-figure price tag today, there’s no need to buy a whole coin. Most exchanges allow you to start with as much money as you are willing to spend.

Crypto funds

People have long been using funds to gain diversified exposure to a market or a specific segment of that market. As it turns out, you can do that with cryptocurrencies as well.

For instance, the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (BITW) tracks an index made up of the 10 largest crypto assets weighted by market capitalization. Because cryptocurrencies are often highly volatile, the index is rebalanced monthly to stay up to date with the rapidly changing market prices.

BITW’s five largest holdings are Bitcoin (61.8%), Ethereum (28.7%), Cardano (2.3%), Polygon (1.8%) and Polkadot (1.3%).