A UK pension fund has become the first in the country to add Bitcoin (BTC) to its portfolio. In a press release on Monday, the pension advice firm Cartwright said it had recommended a 3% Bitcoin allocation to an unidentified client, citing the digital currency's long-term performance. Since 2013, Bitcoin has returned nearly 100,000%.

Sam Roberts, director of investment consulting at Cartwright, emphasized the strategic relevance of the move, saying, "We are proud to have led this groundbreaking move." He expects it will hopefully influence other UK institutional investors to follow suit. He cited that most of their global competitors are already positioned to take advantage of the unique properties of Bitcoin.

This move reflects the wider trend of institutional Bitcoin adoption, especially in the wake of the approval given for spot Bitcoin ETFs in January this year. Financial giants BlackRock and Fidelity’s existing ETFs have managed to amass over one million Bitcoins worth about 67 billion dollars at its current market price.

Cartwright draws an interesting parallel between current Bitcoin adoption and how the pension industry gradually embraced equities in the 1970s. The firm states that as initial adoption may be slow, failing to include Bitcoin within investment portfolios could eventually be considered a strategic failure.