Other industry highlights:

• Private Liquidity Fund Deploys $5M — Targets $50M in AUM

• $60M Legacy Quant Fund Delivers 24.4% Net Return in 2025 as Crypto Markets Went Sideways

____________

^{🗞 Allocator Developments 🗞}

Crypto VC Joins Sovereign Wealth's $2B FoFs Program— Liberty City Ventures (LCV) has been selected by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) as a manager within its expanded Fund of Funds program, following the sovereign wealth fund’s recent increase of the initiative to $2B from an initial $1B. The program is designed to attract leading global venture firms to Qatar, bolster the country’s startup ecosystem, and support broader economic diversification efforts. LCV, a New York–based crypto native venture firm with $2.5B in AUM, joins a cohort of 12 regional and international managers participating in the program.

$6.3B Pension Fund Increases Digital Asset Exposure to 4.5% of Fund — Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement System, which manages approximately $6.3B in assets, has built its digital asset exposure to roughly 4.5% of the portfolio (about $126M on a cost basis of ~2%) primarily through commitments to private equity and venture funds investing in blockchain infrastructure, including an early allocation to Morgan Creek’s Blockchain Opportunity Fund. The pension also maintains selective exposure to liquid tokens such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana within broader fund mandates, alongside allocations to managers executing high-yield, short-duration income strategies in digital asset markets. Its approach emphasizes partnerships with specialist managers that secure both equity and associated token rights, positioning the portfolio to capture full economic upside across blockchain venture, liquid token, and yield-oriented strategies.

$10B Family Office Allocates $100M to Yield Farming Fund —YZi Labs has made a $100M strategic commitment to Hash Global’s BNB Holdings Fund, the institutional version of its BNB Yield Fund, marking an expansion of an existing partnership and continued institutionalization of BNB-focused strategies. The fund provides institutional investors with structured exposure to the BNB ecosystem through a mandate spanning yield generation, liquidity strategies, and ecosystem-aligned investments across DeFi protocols, infrastructure, and application-layer projects built on BNB Chain.

Newly Launched Swiss Based Market Neutral & Absolute Return FoF — According to sources familiar with the matter, Sistematik, a crypto-focused fund-of-funds allocating to hedge fund managers pursuing market-neutral and absolute return strategies in digital asset markets, has launched. Unconfirmed reports suggest the firm is targeting approximately $10M in seed capital, to be deployed across 10–15 managers. Katalin Tischhauser has been appointed Chief Investment Officer; she previously built and scaled Sygnum’s regulated crypto asset management platform to $250M in AUM between 2019 and 2022, leading investment strategy, portfolio construction, and risk oversight while delivering significant outperformance in its fund-of-funds strategy.

____________

🔥 What’s Hot in Crypto 🔥

Private Liquidity Fund Deploys $5M — Targets $50M in AUM

M31 Capital is gaining traction with its newly launched Asymmetric Private Liquidity Fund (PLF), which has already deployed $5M since its Q3 debut as it works toward a $50M AUM target. Positioned as a hybrid between crypto venture and delta-neutral strategies, the fund is designed to deliver venture-like upside while maintaining a materially more conservative principal risk profile—an approach that reflects both structural inefficiencies in crypto markets and M31’s differentiated access to deal flow.

The PLF’s core strategy centers on private Liquidity Provisioning Deals (LPDs), a niche but rapidly emerging segment of crypto capital markets. In these agreements, the fund deploys stablecoin capital into early-stage DeFi protocols’ onchain products, effectively acting as a foundational liquidity provider. In exchange, M31 receives allocations of the protocol’s native tokens, capturing upside typically associated with venture investments. Crucially, the principal remains stablecoin-denominated and liquid, isolating risk primarily to smart contract integrity, stablecoin stability, and protocol-specific design factors rather than broader market volatility.

This structure enables the fund to target returns comparable to mid-stage crypto venture while preserving a liquidity and downside profile more akin to delta-neutral strategies. The asymmetry stems from retaining token upside without taking on directional exposure to crypto markets (The principal is not exposed to directional exposure) — a dynamic that M31 believes is currently mispriced due to limited competition. Many traditional crypto funds are structurally unable to participate in these deals, creating a supply-demand imbalance that benefits specialized managers.

The strategy is led by Alan Keegan, a seasoned operator and investor active in crypto since leaving Bridgewater’s FX team in 2016, bringing a differentiated sourcing edge through his experience advising projects on structuring these liquidity provisioning deals, which has translated into preferential access and terms. M31 Capital, founded in 2020 by former Bridgewater COO Michael Swensson and early Bitcoin adopter Nathan Montone, has established a track record across both liquid and venture strategies, launching five funds to date—including three liquid vehicles and a venture fund—and reporting consistent outperformance relative to both crypto-native benchmarks and traditional asset classes.

____________

$60M Legacy Quant Fund Delivers 24.4% Net Return in 2025 as Crypto Markets Went Sideways

Green Key Trading, a New York-based quantitative crypto fund founded in 2017, closed 2025 up 24.4% net – outperforming many digital asset managers in a year where BTC, ETH, SOL, and other major coins were down. The firm has compounded at 30.8%* annualized since 2020.

Green Key runs a multi-strategy absolute return approach across both systematic and discretionary sleeves in an attempt to generate returns regardless of market direction.

The firm’s strategy is anchored by three primary pillars: (1) Their algorithmic market-making business deploys high-frequency, self-executing strategies across venues, supported by robust infrastructure and inventory management systems designed to mitigate directional exposure. The team has also recently made improvements to their ultra-low latency connectivity between exchanges around the world. (2) An actively managed beta strategy focuses on event-driven opportunities, dynamically reallocating capital around anticipated market dislocations while incorporating mechanisms such as token staking. (3) Complementing these is a distressed and special situations strategy, where Green Key has capitalized on major industry disruptions including the FTX bankruptcy, USTerra collapse, Celsius implosion, Grayscale fund creation/redemption mechanics, and structured arb with public vehicles.

The nine-person team is led by co-founder and CEO Will Vranos, who has been professionally active in digital assets for over a decade. Alongside Will are his co-founder and CIO Samuel Rosen, who draws on experience in Brown’s PhD program, and CTO Kyle Thompson, formerly of Google, AWS, and Tower Research.

The fund operates as a single commingled vehicle with approximately $60M AUM. Green Key is currently launching a Cayman feeder fund in Q2 2026, structured at 0/20 for the remainder of the year, in response to growing demand from non-US single family offices and other allocators.

____________

____________

🍿 Blockchain Bytes 🍿

• Third Eye leads the Bullish Professional Trading Competition, ranking first across all key performance metrics, including a +44.84% return and a 5.64 Calmar ratio, in a field competing for a $10M+ investment mandate (Bullish)

• Pythagoras Investment, an early institutional crypto firm with an +11 year track record and $200M in AUM, is launching a new fund featuring a structured share class model, including a first-loss tranche alongside a preferred return option (Hedge Fund Alert)

• ParaFi Capital secured $125M for a new venture fund, part of approximately $325M raised across its platform since early 2025, lifting total assets under management to around $2B (Phemex), with an additional $100M flowing into its quantitative strategies (Edgar)

• DRW is preparing to launch a crypto long/short hedge fund and raise external capital, led by former XBTO CIO Javier Rodriguez, with the strategy spanning quantitative and directional trading under its newly formed DRW Asset Management unit (Ludovica Brignola)

• Franklin Templeton, which manages over $1.1T in assets, plans to acquire 250 Digital—a liquid crypto investment arm spun out of CoinFund—integrating its active trading strategies into a new “Franklin Crypto” unit as it expands a $1.8B digital assets platform (Franklin Templeton)

• CV5 Capital and Formatnull Investment Management have launched a Cayman-domiciled digital asset hedge fund offering institutional access to systematic, high-frequency trading strategies, targeting $100M in AUM and delivering diversified exposure across arbitrage, algorithmic, and discretionary approaches with a track record of Sharpe ratios above 2.0 (Cayman Independent)

• 5c(c) Capital is launching a $35M VC fund backed by the CEOs of Polymarket and Kalshi, with support from over 20 early investors including a Millennium Management portfolio manager, targeting early-stage companies building infrastructure and services for prediction markets—such as data tools, liquidity provision, and compliance systems (Coindesk)

• Bybit announced that Mantle Vault on its On-Chain Earn platform has surpassed $200M in AUM within 94 days of launch, with the product generating yield through a combination of Ethena staking, leveraged stablecoin lending on Aave, and market-neutral strategies designed to minimize volatility (Newswire)

• Rise Fund (Tether.io) is hiring an Investment Manager to support its expansion efforts, focusing on hands-on deal sourcing, execution, and portfolio management as stablecoins scale globally — Tether reported over $10B in net profit last year (Tether)

• 3IQ has appointed Kristina Zvyagintseva as Head of Business Development, U.S., following her tenure as Business Development Manager – North America at Algoz (Kristina Zvyaginsteva), Cypher Capital has named Kim W. as General Partner and Chief Investment Officer, tasking him with leading investment strategy across digital assets and multi-asset portfolios (Cypher Capital) and StoneX has appointed Adam Okin as Director of Digital Markets, bringing experience in raising over $50M across quant, directional, hybrid, and liquid token strategies at his prior consulting firm (Adam Okin)

_{*Monthly returns calculated as of February 28, 2026 and shown net of fees; reflected returns prior to April 2022 are proprietary trading returns that have been pro-forma adjusted to reflect a theoretical 2/20 fee, and no assurance can be given that the fund will continue to follow substantially the same investment strategy; loans were used in trading prior to April 2022. Returns before April 2022 not verified by independent third-party analysis. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Investments and commodity interest trading involve substantial risks, including risk of loss.}

_{Disclaimer: The information provided in this newsletter is for general informational purposes only. The information provided in this newsletter is not intended to solicit any type of investment. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, and you should not rely on it as such. Any action you take based on the information presented is at your own risk. We make no representation or warranty, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the newsletter or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the newsletter for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk. In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this newsletter.}