SkyBridge goes all in on crypto, betting on ‘tremendous growth’ ahead

April 25, 2022 Coin Telegraph

"For us, we think the cryptocurrency markets represent tremendous growth,” said SkyBridge founder Anthony Scarramucci.

SkyBridge Capital is working on pivoting the majority of its assets under management (AUM) to digital assets, as the sector represents “tremendous growth” for the firm.

The hedge fund was founded by former U.S. politician Anthony Scaramucci in 2005, and first delved into Bitcoin (BTC) in late 2020. The firm also has money deployed in other hedge funds, late-stage private tech companies and real estate, with its total AUM reported being around $7.3 billion.

Skybridge now manages a $7 million Bitcoin Fund among others and has been actively working to get a spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Speaking with Bloomberg in the lead up to the annual SkyBridge Alternatives Conference (SALT) this week, Scaramucci said that the firm is repositioning itself to “eventually be a leading cryptocurrency asset manager and adviser”

“We made a decision during the pandemic that we had to relitigate our entire portfolio. There’s a pre-pandemic world and a post-pandemic world, and a post-pandemic world has a lot more government deficits—it has a lot more uncertainty related to growth.”

“For us, we think the cryptocurrency markets represent tremendous growth. It comes with volatility, certainly, but I think over the three to five years, we’d like that trajectory,” he added.

SkyBridge’s director of business development John Darsie noted that the firm’s growing focus on crypto was brought about due to a “huge drawdown in the credit portion” of the firm’s hedge fund manager portfolio.

Seeking out investments in stronger growth-oriented managers, the firm is now looking for allocations across many crypto assets and blockchain projects, with Darsie noting that the SkyBridge is “extremely bullish on the sector.”

“What we decided to do was a portion of that capital that was previously allocated to credit managers was invested directly into crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum—but then also rotate capital into crypto-asset managers like Multicoin, Polychain, Pantera, people of that nature,” he said.

The bullish comments come just weeks after Scaramucci noted that the blockchain industry has a very bright future, but was concerned by some “absolutely despicable” U.S. politicians that could hamper the growth of the local sector.

Speaking on the SEC with Bloomberg however, Scaramucci seemed relatively optimistic that the agency will approve a spot BTC ETF once a few more factors fall into place, while also noting that its application denial in January was not necessarily “specific” to them.

“I think the SEC is taking the position that because the cash trading of Bitcoin is happening all over the world, that they don’t have a one-market clearing for all buys and sells. So they’re worried about price manipulation.”

“But over time, because of the transparency of the markets, I think they’re going to get more comfortable with it,” he added.

Crypto venture capital firms see surging assets under management

April 5, 2022 Coin Telegraph

A16Z

Filings reveal the massive amount of assets that crypto venture funds are managing, Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) crypto funds were also disclosed to be worth around $9 billion.

Venture capital (VC) firms focused on Web3 projects and crypto businesses are accumulating billions of dollars worth of assets under management as more capital is injected into the sector.

The assets under management figure for Web3 and crypto investment firm Paradigm has recently been revealed. Filings show that the firm has $13.2 billion in assets, a growth of 343% compared to the $2.98 billion reported in a filing in December 2020.

The filings were reviewed by business journalist Eric Newcomer. Writing for his newsletter, he looked at recent applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for some of the biggest venture capital firms in the Web3 and crypto sectors.

To be registered as an “investment advisor,” these firms must disclose their regulatory assets under management with the SEC.

The applications also revealed that Andreessen Horowitz's (a16z) crypto-focused funds totaled around $9 billion. Overall, its total assets under management for all investments topped $54.6 billion.

Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global also posted some big numbers, with $85.5 billion and $124.7 billion respectively, Tiger seeing a 58% increase from $79.1 billion in its filings from last year.

The findings come after a recent report that venture capital money is pouring into crypto. In 2021, $25.2 billion worth of venture capital funding went to global blockchain startups, a 713% increase from the $3.1 billion in 2020.

Expectations could be greater for 2022. In January, a16z revealed that it is gearing up to raise $4.5 billion for its latest fund focused on cryptocurrencies. Venture capital firms are also keenly looking at Solana’s NFT offerings for further opportunities.

The Solana network offers significantly lower transaction costs than Ethereum at faster speeds, and a few Solana-based gaming and NFT companies are seeing big money from VCs, according to reports.

Fractal, a Solana NFT gaming marketplace, raised $35 million on Friday, April 1st, in a round led by Paradigm with participation from a16z. Magic Eden, a popular Solana NFT market, raised $27 million in a Series A round in mid-March, also led by Paradigm, with other funds coming from Sequoia Capital.

13 Crypto Exchanges Custody 7% of the Crypto Economy, Coinbase Dominates With $56.2B AUM

January 2, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Institutional crypto products eye record AUM as investors pile into Bitcoin

October 12, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Altcoins

Institutional investors piled $225 million into Bitcoin products while Ether products saw outflows of $13.6 million this past week.

Institutional investors are continuing to pile into Bitcoin despite prices pushing up to a five-month high.

According to CoinShares’ Oct. 12 Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, more than $226 million in capital flowed to institutional Bitcoin (BTC) products this past week. Bitcoin products dominated inflows for the third consecutive week, posting a week-over-week increase of 227%.

The heavy inflows coincided with the price of BTC gaining 12.5% for the week, with BTC sitting at around $54,000 on Oct. 8.

CoinShares attributes the positive shift in sentiment towards Bitcoin to recent statements from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler’s suggesting the long-awaited approval of the United States’ first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) may be just around the corner.

The surging activity surrounding Bitcoin has seen the combined assets under management (AUM) of institutional crypto products push up to $66.7 billion last week — with CoinShares estimating the total is just 5% shy of the sector’s record AUM from May.

Products tracking altcoins have posted a mixed performance for the week, with Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) products generating inflows of $12.5 million and $3 million respectively. However, funds offering exposure to Ether (ETH), Polkadot (DOT) and Ripple (XRP) suffered outflows of $13.6 million, $2.1 million and $600,000 each.

Crypto investment products have now posted inflows for eight weeks in a row.

Many onlookers are attributing BTC’s recent bullish momentum to expectations that the SEC will soon approve a futures-based Bitcoin ETF.

While the SEC has previously shot down every application it has received for physically-backed Bitcoin ETFs, the SEC is currently deliberating a four applications for exchange-traded funds based on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's (CME) regulated futures contracts.

With CME’s futures markets offering a product that is already insured and overseen by U.S. regulators, pundits such as senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg Eric Balchunas believe that Bitcoin futures ETFs are “likely on schedule” to receive a regulatory green light this month.

Institutional bulls back Bitcoin after weeks of altcoin accumulation

October 5, 2021 Coin Telegraph

AUM

Institutional crypto appetites have shifted away from altcoin back to Bitcoin, with BTC investment products leading the inflows for digital asset products for the second week in a row.

Institutional investors are pivoting back to digital gold with Bitcoin (BTC) investment products posting a third consecutive week of inflows.

According to CoinShares’ latest Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, BTC investment products generated $68.7 million worth of inflows between Sept. 27 and Oct. 1, representing a 36% increase in exposure week-over-week.

While products tracking BTC have now dominated inflows to digital asset products for two weeks in a row, the bullish turn comes fresh off a record streak of outflows that persisted for eight consecutive weeks until early September.

Total inflows for digital investment products were $90 million for the week, marking the seventh consecutive week of inflows as institutional investors continue to increase exposure to digital assets.

Institutional investors also snapped up a significant amount of Ethereum (ETH) investment products, with inflows totaling $20.2 million. BTC and ETH products gained roughly 7.4% and 3.2% for the week respectively.

There was also a mixed appetite for altcoins last week. Products tracking Cardano (ADA), and Solana (SOL) posting inflows of $1.1 million and $700,000 respectively, while Polkadot (DOT) and Binance Coin (BNB) fund shed $800,000 each. Multi-asset funds also saw minimal inflows of $1.9 million.

Institutional demand for Solana appears to have bottomed out, with inflows to products tracking SOL crashing by 98% since posting highs of $38.9 million five weeks.

Despite the markets recovering from July’s violent pull-back, CoinShares highlighted that last week’s trade volume of $2.4 billion remains low compared to the $8.4 billion worth of institutional crypto products traded weekly during the height of 2021’s bull cycle in mid-May.

According to CoinShares’ estimates, institutional asset managers currently represent combined assets under management (AUM) worth $57.1 billion combined — a weekly increase of 8.5%.

Grayscale continues to dominate the sector, representing $41.1 billion or 71% of the sector’s total AUM. CoinShares XBT and Purpose funds rank in second and third with $2.2 billion and $2.1 billion worth of AUM respectively.

Institutional exposure to altcoin products retests all-time high

September 7, 2021 Coin Telegraph

AUM

Inflows to Solana-based investment products saw a whopping 388% increase last week, with institutional investors gaining exposure to $13.2 million worth of SOL products.

Institutional demand for altcoin exposure has surged to record levels, with the altcoin market share now representing a record 35% of capital locked in crypto investment products.

According to CoinShares’ Sept. 7 Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly report, nearly 40% of the past week's inflows to digital asset investment products were allocated t instruments tracking altcoins.

While $97.8 million was invested into crypto investment products combined between Aug. 30 and Sept. 3 to mark the sector’s third consecutive week of inflows, $38.9 million was invested into altcoin products.

This past week also saw a sizeable increase in institutional crypto investments, with the previous two weeks recording inflows of $24 million and $21 million respectively.

Roughly 35% of capital invested in institutional crypto investment products is currently locked in instruments tracking assets other than Bitcoin — comprising a retest of the metric’s all-time high from May.

Ethereum (ETH) tracking products led the altcoin pack for the second week in a row, recording inflows of $14.4 million, a 16.2% decrease from the previous week’s $17.2 million.

There was a whopping 388% spike in weekly inflows for Solana (SOL)-based products, with SOL products absorbing $13.2 million. This coincided with the price of SOL gaining 37% over the same period.

CoinShares highlighted that inflows to Solana products doubled year-to-date (YTD) this past week, with $25 million having been invested into SOL instruments during the entirety of 2021 so far. SOL-based products now represent $44 million in total assets under management (AUM).

Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT)-based funds also saw notable inflows of $6.5 million and $2.7 million respectively.

Bitcoin (BTC) investment products bucked an eight-week trend of outflows — the longest streak on record for any digital asset product — after enjoying inflows of $58.9 million for the week. Despite the bullish shift in momentum, BTC investment products have posted outflows for 14 of the past 17 weeks.

According to CoinShares estimates, institutional asset managers currently represent a total AUM of $62.5 billion combined — nearing the record high of $66 billion posted during mid-May.

Top institutional asset manager Grayscale continues to dominate the competition, representing 73% of the sector's combined AUM with $46.2 billion.

AUM