Ruffer Investment Company

And he wasn't alone.

In late 2020, British investment manager Ruffer allocated around 2.5% of one portfolio to Bitcoin.

The firm described it as, quote, a seemingly nonsensical asset, but one that makes absolute sense for how we see the world.

Ruffer acknowledged that Bitcoin was risky and unconventional, but argued it was emerging as a potential store of value and a genuine challenger to gold.

This marked a major shift.

Bitcoin remained volatile, controversial, and widely seen as speculative.

So clearly a big D rating there and something they see potential in.

That leads us on to Ruffer, which has been more of that ilk in recent months.

It has been seeing opportunities and investing in shares on that basis.

Yeah, Ruff has definitely been taking a more opportunistic approach.

And at the moment, Amazon and Microsoft are two of its biggest equity holdings.

Yeah, that sounds sensible, the software move.

I don't think I'll ever be able to get over there with Ruffer, their Bitcoin bet from a few years ago, which, I mean, they made money on it.

It was a very small part of the portfolio.

So anyways, we have this conference where, uh, uh, Gavin Andresen and Greg Maxwell are there, um, and, uh, in attendance also is Jonathan Bier, our protagonist, who, uh, he's like, uh, he's- he writes, "As someone fascinated by the block size debate, given the g- players attending, I felt that I simply had to attend the conference in Canada.

I thought paret- perhaps Gavin and Gregory would discuss things in the open and make progress towards resolving the conflict, and that was something I was con- keen to witness." He was working in London at Ruffer, a macro investment house, and he said, "I considered explaining myself to my colleagues at the office and asking for more time off.

After all, it was an investment company, and this trip could be classified as, as investment research.

I therefore would not need such an intense schedule." He's planning on, like, flying in, like, one day.

Boots journalism.

Yep.

Uh, Ruffer was a macro investment house known for accurately predif- predicting and profiting from the 20- 2008 global financial crisis.

The company appeared to be perpetually worried about the risk of high inflation driven by monetary easing from central bankers and the prospect of large fiscal deficits.