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This Bitcoin Hedge Fund Is Taking Treasuries Companies Global: Blockspace

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1 неделя ago

9 апреля, 2025

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This Bitcoin-focused hedge fund outperformed bitcoin last year.

210k Capital, the hedge fund for UTXO Management, was the fifth best performing single major hedge fund in 2024 according to HFR. It returned 164% net of fees in 2024. UTXO Management is the investing arm of BTC Inc., of Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin Conference fame.

This article first appeared on Blockspace Media, the leading Bitcoin industry publication dedicated to covering Bitcoin tech, markets, mining, and ordinals. Get Blockspace articles directly in your inbox by clicking here.

Single manager hedge funds are run by one entity, versus multi-manager or fund-to-fund hedge funds, which have multiple portfolio managers.

In HFR’s recap of its 2024 Global Hedge Fund Industry Report Q4 2024, the research firm revealed that cryptocurrency-focused hedge funds were “the leading area of overall [hedge fund] industry performance.” HFR’s index for cryptocurrency funds returned 59.81% in 2024.

UTXO Management’s banner 2024 performance puts it in conversation with leading hedge funds that focus on traditional assets and industries. And it has bitcoin to thank for that – or, more directly, bitcoin companies.

UTXO Management’s Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer, Tyler Evans, said that the fund’s 2024 returns chiefly stemmed from its investment in bitcoin strategy companies, principally Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and Metaplanet.

“Over the last 12 months, we went very hard into the bitcoin treasury-play thesis as as we really saw it play out with what Saylor is doing, and the opportunity to really globalize it…So we did that pretty heavily in 2024, with both Strategy as well as Metaplanet out of Japan, where we were the first bitcoin investors in the company,” Evans told Blockspace.

He said that the hedge fund holds 80% of its portfolio in bitcoin equities, which were a “big factor that drove [210k Capital’s] out-performance in 2024. A portion of that 80% includes public bitcoin miners, but the real money makers have been Metaplanet and Strategy, the latter of which 210k Capital held since the early days of its bitcoin strategy.

These companies, Evans explained, offer a novel form of securitized bitcoin exposure that makes it easier for everything from institutional firms to IRAs to pension funds to hold bitcoin-adjacent assets. As a result, “the investable landscape has grown significantly over the last few years,” he said, opening the door to “registered investment advisors, wealth managers, funds, and sophisticated family offices.”

This marks a shift from the fund’s early days when it courted self-made, high-net worth individuals who were typically more active investors managing their own portfolio to more passive investors whom manage pools of capital.

“We saw the demand for institutional capital to get exposure to Bitcoin and the role that these Treasury companies can serve is securitizing bitcoins for fixed income investors, the insurance funds, or the mutual funds,” said Evans.

“These institutional allocators have very defined mandates of what types of instruments that they can invest in. And that’s really the beauty of the whole playbook is securitizing bitcoin in these different formats that make it so that institutional allocators can invest into it.”

Bitcoin ETFs, first approved in January 2024, offer liquidity as well. With BlackRock on board – not to mention it recommending a 5% allocation to bitcoin – Evans said the Overton Window for how investors view bitcoin is shifting. So much so that the Wisconsin Teacher’s pension now holds bitcoin ETFs, as does the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund.

Next: taking bitcoin treasury companies global

The only thing harder than winning the championship is defending your title. And with bitcoin down year-to-date, it raises the question: can 210k Capital top 2024?

Evans said that the fund hedges its positions with a number of auctions, but it’s also still “very bullish” on bitcoin in 2025. It’s even more bullish on exporting Michael Saylor’s corporate bitcoin treasury Strategy strategy to other financial markets.

“We think that there’s an opportunity for a bitcoin treasury company in every tier-one financial market globally,” he said.

UTXO Management had a large hand in standing up Metaplanet’s bitcoin treasury in Japan. Tyler Evans served as an independent director and UTXO Management partner Dylan Leclair acting as Metaplanet’s head of bitcoin strategy. Another UTXO portfolio company, The Smarter Web Company, is set to IPO on the Aquis Exchange in the U.K. this week.

Read: England’s Metaplanet? The Smarter Web Company eyes UK IPO with bitcoin strategy

Public bitcoin treasury companies like Metaplanet give traditional investors access to bitcoin where other vehicles are limited. In Japan, for example, there are no native bitcoin ETFs, and access to American ones is limited. This – plus Japan’s low interest rates and a lower capital gains tax on equities cryptocurrencies – make it ripe for Metaplanet to reap market share, Evans believes.

UTXO has its eye on multiple markets to incubate bitcoin treasury companies, including Latin America, Central America, the Middle East, Australia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Some of these are already in the works “at various stages of maturity,” Evans teased, with some in the IPO planning stage and others raising capital.

“Our inbound deal flow of seasoned entrepreneurs who want to bring it to their own local market is growing massively,” he said.

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Kyrgyzstan President Brings CBDC a Step Closer to Reality

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3 часа ago

17 апреля, 2025

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Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov took his country a step closer to issuing its own central bank digital currency Thursday, signing legislation that gives the «digital som» legal status.

The central Asian country is still deciding whether or not to issue a CBDC, but Thursday’s amendments to the Constitutional Law of the Kyrgyz Republic ensures that the digital som will be treated as legal tender if the central bank goes ahead with issuing a CBDC.

«The purpose of the Constitutional Law is to launch a pilot project of a prototype of a national digital currency, the ‘digital som,’ as well as to create a legal basis and its status,» a statement on the president’s site said.

Under the new provisions, the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic will be able to develop and approve rules for conducting payments on the digital som platform.

These provisions, described as amendments on the president’s website, were first adopted on March 20 by Kyrgyzstan’s supreme council. The country is due to begin testing the digital som this year, according to local news outlet Trend News Agency. The country is not expected to make a final decision on whether to issue the CBDC until next year.

The idea of CBDCs has been controversial among some crypto proponents, but countries like the U.K., Nigeria, Jamaica and the Bahamas — as well as the European Union’s multinational bloc — have moved in the direction of issuing a CBDC, while other countries like the U.S. have largely moved away from the idea of issuing one.

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Hidden Road, Set to Be Acquired by Ripple, Wins U.S. Broker-Dealer License

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3 часа ago

17 апреля, 2025

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Hidden Road, the prime brokerage firm that’s being acquired by Ripple, has obtained approval to operate as a U.S. broker-dealer from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the company said Thursday.

The license, granted to its subsidiary Hidden Road Partners CIV US LLC, will allow the firm to expand its fixed income prime brokerage platform, according to the press release. With the broker-dealer status, the firm plans to offer institutional clients a broader range of regulatory-compliant services in clearing, financing and prime brokerage of fixed income assets.

«[This] is a significant step in the development of Hidden Road’s fixed income prime brokerage platform and bolsters our capabilities in traditional financial markets,» Noel Kimmel, the firm’s president, said in a statement.

The development follows Hidden Road’s announcement earlier this month that it had entered into an agreement to be acquired for $1.25 billion by Ripple, the blockchain infrastructure services firm closely associated with the XRP Ledger (XRPL) network. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close in the coming months.

Backed by Ripple’s resources, Hidden Road said it expects to scale services significantly and position itself as one of the largest non-bank prime brokers. The firm also said earlier that it plans to migrate its post-trade operations onto the XRPL network, aiming to reduce costs and streamline settlement processes.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

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Kraken Sheds ‘Hundreds’ of Jobs to Streamline Business Ahead of IPO, Sources Say

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3 часа ago

17 апреля, 2025

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Crypto exchange giant Kraken has laid off hundreds of staffers across all areas of the business over the past several months, as the firm continues to streamline its operations ahead of a potential public listing in the U.S., according to two people familiar with the situation.

Kraken was reported to have laid off 400 staff, or about 15% of its workforce, at the end of October last year, when Silicon Valley investor and Kraken board member Arjun Sethi became co-CEO alongside David Ripley, who took the reins when former CEO Jesse Powell stepped down in 2023.

Since Sethi became co-CEO, “hundreds more have gone,” said a person familiar with the situation, who pointed to a rolling program of firings over and above the 15% cut late last year.

“They’re culling aggressively across all functions, and it’s a constant and ongoing thing. It’s about improving Kraken’s EBITA [earnings before interest, tax and amortization],” the person said.

When the CEO role was split last year, Sethi and Ripley said in a blog post that there was a need to shed “organizational layers” that had accumulated in Kraken, and make the business “leaner and faster.”

Several crypto firms are currently getting their houses in order to launch an initial public offering (IPO) this year or early next year. Kraken has also been pushing for increased revenues by acquiring businesses such as derivatives platform Ninja Trader, for instance, and recently announcing the addition of stock trading.

«Kraken’s business is thriving. We’re launching more new products than ever before, driving strong revenue growth, and rapidly expanding across our entire product portfolio — including through the agreement to acquire NinjaTrader, announced earlier this year,” a Kraken representative told CoinDesk.

«At the same time, we continuously evaluate our workforce to ensure it aligns with our strategic priorities. We’re approaching this with discipline and intention, making the difficult decision to eliminate certain roles and consolidate teams where redundancies exist, while continuing to hire in key areas of the business,» the Kraken spokesperson said.