Crypto's charms leave some investors in Davos cold

By Divya Chowdhury and Bansari Mayur Kamdar

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Despite watching Bitcoin's scorching run past $100,000 and the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to be a "crypto president" in the U.S., some of the world's largest investors said this week they still plan to stay on the sidelines.

"I am not an advocate, nor a critic ... it is not what it was supposed to be, which was an alternative to banking," said Anne Walsh, chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners, which is headquartered in New York and Chicago.

"To me, what crypto really correlates to is Nasdaq - it's a risk-on appetite indicator to me," she told the Reuters Global Markets Forum on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos.

Walsh said her investment firm, which manages assets of more than $335 billion, has so far not invested in crypto.

Meanwhile, Nicolai Tangen, chief executive of Norway's $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, said he did not see crypto becoming a part of Norges Bank Investment Management's portfolio.

Bitcoin hit a record high of $109,071 on Monday when Trump was sworn in as president.

The world's largest cryptocurrency more than doubled in price last year after the U.S. market regulator's approval for exchange traded funds (ETF) tied to its spot price, and optimism over easing regulatory hurdles with Trump's return to the White House.

"As an investor, what makes it challenging is figuring out what the true fundamental value of crypto is," said Saira Malik, CIO and head of equities and fixed income at Chicago-based asset manager Nuveen.

Malik said that Nuveen, which has $1.3 trillion of assets under management, does not have any direct exposure to crypto. It does, however, invest in companies that could be exposed to the digital asset.

"There's a lot of technology, a lot of intellectual power and talent that you need to bring into an organization to really excel in (crypto)," said Melissa Stolfi, chief operating officer at Los Angeles-based asset manager TCW Group.

Stolfi said her firm, which manages assets worth a total of nearly $200 billion, remained focused on enhancing and maintaining its core business instead.

(Join GMF, a chat room hosted on LSEG Messenger, for live interviews: )

(Reporting by Divya Chowdhury in Davos, Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexander Smith)