Canadian Pension Funds Must Disclose Their Crypto Exposure

• Canada will require pension funds to report their crypto exposures to OSFI.
• BnkToTheFuture CEO said that Canadian Pension Funds have Crypto PTSD.
• Last year, Canadian pension funds wrote off a $150 million investment in Celsius.

In a new 2023 budget plan, the Canadian government said that federally regulated pension funds in the country would have to tell the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) about their exposure to crypto assets.

According to the report, the government seeks to protect Canadians’ retirement benefits following several high-profile bankruptcies in the financial world affecting pension funds. It includes the recent failures of the FTX crypto exchange and the Celsius Network.

Simon Dixon, CEO of BnkToTheFuture, took to Twitter to comment on the new regulatory requirement. He said the Canadian Pension Funds have “Crypto PTSD,” [post-traumatic stress disorder], for investing in the Sam Bankman-Fried-led FTX exchange after suffering significantly from the collapse of Celsius.

Notably, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan wrote down the entirety of its $95 million investment in FTX, meaning that it was reducing the value of the investment to zero.  Previously, other Canadian pension funds, such as the Quebec-based pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), wrote off a $150 million investment in Celsius Network, implying that it was no longer expecting to recover that investment.

After months of court cases, Celsius recently announced that it had agreed with the Custody Ad Hoc Group and the UCC on a Settlement. The settlement will enable eligible account holders to opt-in and receive back most of their digital assets that are part of the Custody Program. Notably, those who opt-in will receive 72.5% of their digital assets back over time.