Temasek lost $275 million on FTX. Took a writedown in 2022. Spent four years thinking about whether crypto might still be a good idea. Arrived at no.
Four years. That's 1,460 days to decide whether the asset class that vaporized a quarter billion of your dollars deserves another shot. Most people figure out a hot stove is dangerous after one touch. Temasek needed 208 weeks.
The investment committee must have been spectacular. Month one: too soon to tell. Month twelve: still processing the learnings. Month thirty: we've appointed a blockchain task force. Month forty-eight: crypto is off the table.
Singapore's sovereign wealth fund manages $389 billion. They can hire anyone. They can access any deal. They can call any CEO and get a meeting in six minutes. They gave Sam Bankman-Fried $275 million to build a Ponzi scheme in the Bahamas.
The local criticism must have stung. Nothing says world-class capital allocation like explaining to Singaporean taxpayers why their national piggy bank funded a meth-head in cargo shorts who couldn't locate customer deposits without a Ouija board.
Temasek's current position: crypto is off the table. Not some crypto. Not regulated crypto. Not crypto with adult supervision. All of it. The entire sector is contaminated. They've seen enough.
This is what passes for institutional learning. Lose a fortune. Wait until the news cycle dies. Announce you've learned your lesson years after everyone else figured it out. Collect your management fees.
Somewhere a retail trader with $4,000 in Robinhood just read this headline and thought, "If Temasek won't touch crypto, maybe I should buy more Dogecoin." That trader will lose everything by October. Temasek will issue a thoughtful statement about risk management in 2030.
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