Industry highlights:

• Multi-Strat Taps Former BlockTower and NYMEX Executive to Head Directional Strategy

• Sydney-Based Multi-Manager Set to Go Live September 1 With $300M in Capacity

• TradFi Crypto Fund Wrapper Outperforms CCI30 by Double Digits with Tax-Efficient Exposure

…but first, let’s raise a glass to CFW’s official sponsor for 2025 🥂

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Strong Momentum for ML Tech’s AI Advisor

Since the launch of ML Tech’s AI Advisor, the response from institutional investors has been overwhelmingly positive. Investors highlight AI Advisor's real-time portfolio insights, precision-driven analytics, and seamless user experience as standout features. The AI Advisor is being recognized as a game-changing tool in the evolving digital asset landscape.

Why Institutions are Embracing ML Tech’s AI Advisor

ML Tech’s AI Advisor provides the following benefits:

• Portfolio Intelligence — tailored views into your positions, exposures, and allocations.

• Comparative Strategy Insight — ML Tech’s quantitative strategies and benchmark them across different systems and venues.

• Embedded Experience — insights directly within ML Tech’s platform—no extra tools, no friction.

With over 350 institutional and qualified investors already engaging with the platform, ML Tech's AI Advisor is setting a new standard in crypto-native investment management. Whether you’re managing directional strategies or exploring market-neutral allocations, the AI Advisor is built to support your edge.

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^{🗞 Allocator Developments 🗞}

$1.75B Crypto Asset Manager to Allocate to BTC Denominated Strats — After securing a $20M investment from MARA Holdings, a Bitcoin mining company, Two Prime has begun allocating $1-10M, with the opportunity to scale further, to BTC-denominated strategies. Managers must be algorithmic/systematic, have at least $1M in AUM and have at least a three month track record.

GP Stakes Fund Looking to Deploy $20m to Fund Managers — Bridger Pennington, founder of Fund Launch Partners, is aiming to deploy approximately $20M across 18 fund managers. To date, the firm has invested in 9 managers, with an average ticket size of $1M and a range between $250K to $5M.

$1.78B Endowment Partners with UK Based Crypto Manager — Texas Tech University has partnered with Fasanara Capital, a $4.5B investment manager. Tim Barrett, CIO of Texas Tech University, has credited Fasanara with “building comfort with digital asset exposure, thanks to its multi-strategy approach”

$100M Chicago Based FoFs Manager to Launch Fund IV — Pure Crypto is preparing to raise its fourth fund after growing its first vehicle, launched in 2018, nearly 1,000% to $60M in assets. The firm allocates to a small group of crypto funds—currently eight—with Multicoin Capital as a core position.

Emerging Multi-Manager Acquires Crypto Fund of Funds — Alaris Asset Management, a crypto fund of funds that has vetted over 1,200 funds and maintains a portfolio of 11, has been acquired by Pelican Investments, a Dubai-based digital assets multi-manager.

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🔥 What’s Hot in Crypto 🔥

Multi-Strat Taps Former BlockTower and NYMEX Executive to Head Directional Strategy

Monarq Asset Management, the multi-strategy digital asset investment firm formerly known as MNNC Group, has appointed Sam Gaer as Chief Investment Officer to lead the firm’s Directional Strategy, expanding beyond its core in delta-neutral strategies into higher-convexity, cycle-aware exposures.

Gaer brings over 25 years of experience across institutional trading, market infrastructure, and systematic asset management. Most recently, he co-managed BlockTower Capital’s flagship fund and previously founded Katana Financial, a systematic trading firm that became one of the world’s largest VIX traders and an early market maker for CME’s Bitcoin and Ethereum futures. Earlier roles include Chief Information Officer of FINRA and NYMEX, where he led NYMEX’s transition to electronic trading and oversaw its $9B merger with CME Group.

Monarq’s updated Directional Strategy is designed to deliver convex, actively managed exposure to digital assets, without the persistent beta risk that defines much of the current directional fund landscape. The approach blends systematic signal generation with discretionary overlays, primarily implemented through listed options and volatility structures.

The portfolio is organized around three pillars: capturing right-tail convexity in regime shifts, identifying mispriced special situations, and extracting tactical yield across short-dated dislocations. Exposure is dynamic and may run net-long, neutral, or net-short depending on prevailing macro conditions, liquidity flows, and structural market signals.

Monarq Asset Management includes talent from Tower Research, LedgerPrime, and Teza Technologies. The firm’s expansion into directional trading reflects growing allocator demand for strategies capable of navigating volatility, participating in upside, and preserving capital when momentum fades.

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Sydney-Based Multi-Manager Set to Go Live September 1 With $300M in Capacity

Sydney-based investment firm 369c has officially entered the asset management space, launching with a quantitative hedge fund aimed at high-net-worth individuals, family offices, and institutional investors. The firm, built on decades of systematic trading experience, combines advanced data science and mathematical insight to identify repeating patterns in markets and generate steady, risk-adjusted returns in all market conditions.

The firm’s flagship Omni Fund, which began managing external capital in June 2025, is a multi-manager, multi-asset class vehicle targeting fully automated, mid-frequency strategies without tail risks. Designed to be style-agnostic, the fund seeks to work with teams with a minimum MAR ratio of 3, strong risk management, and proven ability to deliver consistent performance. The Omni Fund began allocations to 9 crypto-focused teams and will introduce another 2–3 traditional finance teams, with plans to scale to 15–30 teams in 2025. The fund leverages the power of diversification by allocating capital to highly profitable, uncorrelated trading teams, with the objective of minimizing drawdowns and maximizing returns for investors. Total current fund capacity is projected at $300M.

369c has plans to launch a second vehicle, the Tradfi Quant Fund which mirrors the multi-manager structure but excludes crypto exposure (for investors who only want Tradfi exposure).

Both funds have the flexibility to allocate up to 15% of capital to discretionary strategies that align with the core mandate. While the asset class is open-ended, all teams must be trading systematic strategies and adhere to strict stop losses.

Founder Chong Shi brings over 15 years of hands-on trading experience to the firm. After beginning his career at 23, he went on to trade equity index and fixed income futures at Propex Derivatives and later built a successful crypto trading track record at Starbeta. By 2021, he had generated over $10M in realized gains and launched 369c the following year to mentor traders and to build quantitative strategies.

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TradFi Crypto Fund Wrapper Outperforms CCI30 by Double Digits with Tax-Efficient Exposure

Fountainhead Digital, a Vienna-based digital asset investment firm, has developed an exchange-traded instrument (ETI) with partners that outperformed the CCI30 Index by 20–30% during recent market declines. The ETI, listed on the German stock exchange, gives investors exposure to a managed portfolio of crypto assets selected using the firm’s internal research and data models.

Unlike most stock exchange listed crypto products in Europe, which remain fully invested, the ETI can shift between crypto and cash positions without triggering a taxable event when the portfolio is rebalanced. This structure allows for drawdown reduction while preserving tax efficiency.

In February and March 2025, the ETI declined approximately 20%, while the broader CCI30 Index fell by 40–50%. Roughly half of the ETI’s losses were due to foreign exchange exposure to the U.S. dollar (the ETI is denominated in Euro). Without the currency impact, the decline would have been limited to an estimated 7–10%.

The product is managed using an internal portfolio system centered on two core strategies developed by Fountainhead, drawing on data provided by Glassnode over the past two years. One strategy analyzes positioning in the crypto derivatives market, while the other uses on-chain activity—such as short-term holder behavior and value metrics—to guide exposure. These inputs help the system adjust between cash and crypto holdings based on real-time market conditions. Beyond the ETI, Fountainhead`s quantitative strategies are also available as part of custom mandates or digital asset overlays for institutional clients/crypto funds. More information on the strategies (including performance metrics) can be found in Glassnode’s case study on Fountainhead Digital.

Fountainhead Digital was founded by Anton Werner, Martin Bechter, and Vicky Yang. Werner previously co-founded and sold a startup before launching an early-stage investment firm, and has been active in crypto since the mid 2010s. Bechter brings over a decade of experience in corporate finance and venture capital. Yang has more than 10 years of expertise in financial data analytics and portfolio management, including the design of the Los Angeles Consumer Sentiment Index.

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🍿 Blockchain Bytes 🍿

• Apollo Kim, HFT trader at Akuna Capital, has closed a significant capital raise for his secretive digital assets volatility fund, following a year of exceptional risk-adjusted returns (Apollo Kim)

• Samara Asset Management, which also runs a digital assets fund of funds, has been selected by WeBus to manage its XRP treasury, part of the company’s plan to raise up to $300M for an XRP strategic reserve (Yahoo Finance)

• Active Digital Asset Management has appointed Nam Nguyen, Ph.D., founder of NN² Capital, as head of quantitative trading and research. Nguyen, a former quantitative strategist and derivatives specialist, will lead research and systematic trading for the firm’s digital assets fund (Active Digital)

• GameSquare Holdings, backed by Jerry Jones and John Goff, is launching a $100M Ethereum investment strategy in partnership with Dialectic, a DeFi native hedge fund. Using Dialectic’s Medici platform, the Frisco-based media and technology company aims to generate an 8–14% yield on its ETH reserves (GameSquare)

• Big Candle Capital confirmed that its account was featured on Binance’s new Smart Money leaderboard, showing $114M in profit over the past 30 days and $273M in total profit. Founded in 2021, the multi-strategy fund began managing external capital in 2024 and now offers a market-neutral arbitrage strategy. Since July 2022, that strategy has delivered a 19.13% annualized return, a -0.09% max drawdown, and a Sharpe ratio of 13.48 (Fenni Kang)

• 210k Capital, a $433M investment fund led by Trump crypto adviser David Bailey, returned 640% in the 12 months through June by investing in Bitcoin treasury companies, including Metaplanet and The Blockchain Group (Crypto Briefing)

• Asymmetric Financial is winding down its liquid trading strategies after steep losses in its Liquid Alpha Fund, with CEO Joe McCann citing, “while the Liquid Alpha Fund struggled this year, our other vehicles have performed” (Cointelegraph)

• Superstate’s Crypto Carry Fund has attracted over $200M in inflows since launching a little more than a year ago. The fund offers qualified purchasers exposure to crypto basis strategies across Bitcoin, Ether (including staked ETH), and U.S. Treasuries, with ownership recorded via the USCC ERC‑20 token (EDGAR)

• Will Forsyth has joined Hyperion Decimus as director of investor relations. Founded in 2018, Hyperion Decimus is one of the oldest crypto hedge funds and reportedly manages around $200M. Forsyth, who was previously SVP of capital introduction and institutional sales at FalconX, also continues to head investor relations at Black Lotus Capital, a long/short discretionary crypto hedge fund (Will Forsyth)

• Securities lawyer and a firmware engineer have launched Hyper Alpha Capital, a discretionary long/short crypto fund. The strategy, previously traded privately by the fund’s undisclosed PM, posted a 1.8 Sharpe ratio, 9.3 Sortino ratio, and 16% max drawdown in 2024 (Asher Ang)

• Arthur Cheong, founder of Singapore-based DeFiance Capital, marked the firm’s 5th anniversary by sharing lessons from running one of Asia’s top crypto funds, now managing over $200M AUM. DeFiance’s liquid hedge fund, ranked by Preqin as APAC’s best performer in Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, follows a thesis-driven approach, while its 2020 hybrid fund delivered ~4x MOIC with early bets on dYdX, Axie Infinity, LayerZero, and Arbitrum (Arthur Cheong)

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