Don't want to trade it yourself?
Our desk runs DEX portfolios on profit share.
Vivek Ramaswamy has praised legislation that would explicitly allow Ohio’s public pension systems to invest in cryptocurrency-linked products, even as the Bitcoin-focused company he co-founded reported more than half a billion dollars in losses during the first six months of the year.
Strive Inc. reported a $523.5 million net loss during the first half of 2026, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also recorded a $523.8 million unrealized loss on digital assets during the same period.
The losses provide a real-world example of the volatility at the center of an Ohio policy debate Ramaswamy has embraced.
House Bill 18, known as the Ohio Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve Act, would amend state law governing all five of Ohio’s public retirement systems to explicitly allow their boards to invest in qualifying exchange-traded products, including products providing exposure to cryptocurrency.
Ramaswamy called the proposal a “thoughtful & powerful bill” after it was introduced.
The legislation would not require any Ohio pension system to purchase Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency-linked investment. Investment decisions would remain with the individual retirement boards, which are subject to fiduciary obligations.
But the bill makes an important distinction between state-controlled funds and pension assets.
HB 18 would limit the state treasurer to investing no more than 10% of certain state funds in qualifying digital assets. The provisions applying to Ohio’s public retirement systems contain no comparable percentage limit.
Ohio’s five pension systems collectively oversee roughly $284 billion in assets. At that scale, even relatively small allocations could involve billions of dollars.
A 1% allocation would equal approximately $2.84 billion. A 50% decline in an investment of that size would represent a loss of approximately $1.42 billion.
No Ohio pension system has announced plans to make an investment of that size. The calculation illustrates the scale of potential exposure rather than predicting what any retirement board would do.
Strive’s recent results illustrate the volatility involved.
The company has increasingly centered its strategy on Bitcoin and has continued accumulating the cryptocurrency despite the losses reported earlier this year. In an Aug. 31 SEC filing, Strive disclosed the purchase of another 1,800 Bitcoin between Aug. 24 and Aug. 28 at an average price of approximately $79,431.
The purchases brought Strive’s holdings to 23,156 Bitcoin as of Aug. 28.
For a public pension system, losses on an investment would not translate directly into an equivalent reduction in an individual retiree’s monthly check. Ohio’s major public retirement systems provide defined benefits based on formulas established under state law.
Investment performance nevertheless affects the financial condition of those systems. When asset values decline while pension obligations remain, funding gaps can widen and create pressure for increased contributions, changes to benefits or other measures intended to strengthen the system.
That dynamic is not unique to cryptocurrency. The Pew Charitable Trusts found that investment losses contributed to a $439 billion increase in the nationwide funding gap for state pension plans between fiscal years 2021 and 2022.
Ohio has also seen the consequences of funding pressure within its pension systems. The State Teachers Retirement System has repeatedly tied decisions over cost-of-living adjustments and other benefit changes to the long-term financial condition of the fund. STRS Ohio has said that additional financial re benefit changes
Ramaswamy also retains a significant financial interest in Strive.
An Aug. 26 SEC filing lists Ramaswamy as beneficially owning 5,693,897 Strive shares, representing 6.6% of the class reported in the filing.
As TiffinOhio.net previously reported, Ramaswamy has also disclosed personal cryptocurrency holdings while publicly supporting Ohio policies favorable to digital assets.
There is no evidence that Ramaswamy has directed an Ohio pension system to invest in cryptocurrency, and HB 18 has not become law. The legislation remains pending in the Ohio House.
But Strive’s $523.5 million loss adds a new dimension to the debate over HB 18. The risks associated with cryptocurrency-linked investments are no longer hypothetical in the case of the company Ramaswamy helped build.
For Ohio’s public employees and retirees, the central question is whether pension funds built to provide long-term retirement security should be given explicit authority to take on that same exposure — and, if so, how much.
Source: tiffinohio.net