Industry highlights:

• Trading Firm Launches Institutional-Grade Crypto SMA Platform Targeting +40% Annualized Returns

• +$1B Asset Manager Deploys $25M Into Sweden Based Bitcoin Strat

• 9-Figure Multi-Strat’s Original Team Turns Over as PM Joins +$1B Treasury Company

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^{🗞 Allocator Developments 🗞}

US Private Equity Firm Expands $25M Crypto FoF Strategy — CF Private Equity is launching a new institutional-backed crypto fund of funds targeting a 2026 close. The firm has been allocating to digital asset managers since 2017 and has already committed over $100M to blockchain-focused VC strategies. Its dedicated $25 million crypto FoF, which closed in August 2023, has backed six managers to date, with three additional commitments planned for 2025.

Crypto Family Office Turned FoFs Marks Three Year Anniversary — Toshima Digital, a crypto fund of funds backing liquid crypto strategies, has marked its third year of operations. Initially seeded with proprietary capital, the firm now counts family offices, hedge fund founders, and UHNWIs among its LP base. The fund allocates to a dozen differentiated strategies, spanning fundamental, algorithmic, and high-frequency approaches. Toshima is selectively expanding exposure to managers with Sortino ratios above 3, +40% annualized returns without significant leverage, or low/negative correlation to crypto assets.

+$1B Asset Manager Deploys $25M Into Sweden Based Bitcoin Strat — Hilbert Group, a Nasdaq-listed institutional crypto asset manager based in Stockholm, has secured a SEK 300M (approx. 233 BTC) commitment from Deus X Capital for its actively managed Bitcoin treasury strategy. Deus X Capital, launched in October 2023 with $1B in assets under CEO Tim Grant, focuses on private equity, venture capital, and fund allocation across digital assets and fintech.

$20M FoF Sells Strategic Stake to $1B Multi-Strategy Crypto Fund — Scenius Capital has closed a slightly oversubscribed $20M fund dedicated to backing emerging crypto venture managers. The vehicle targets small, early-stage funds with domain-specific edge, emphasizing first- and second-time GPs. In parallel, ParaFi Capital has acquired a strategic GP stake in Scenius to support the firm’s growth and expansion into token capital markets advisory.

Three Firms Launch BTC-Denominated Fund of Funds Strategies — Syz Capital, Samara Alpha, and Atitlan Asset Management have each launched Bitcoin-denominated FoFs targeting market-neutral returns in BTC terms. Syz’s BTC Alpha, operated by the $2B Swiss alternatives firm, has reopened with over 1,800 BTC committed toward a $200M target. Samara Alpha’s BTC+ Fund, live since July 2023, reports a Sortino ratio above 4.0 and focuses on arbitrage, market making, and DeFi/CeFi yield strategies. Atitlan’s new vehicle, launched in partnership with Komainu, uses off-exchange execution and tri-party custody to reduce counterparty risk while deploying crypto-quant strategies built since 2017.

Crypto SMA platform (“Gateway for RIAs”) tops $400M AUM — Eaglebrook Advisors has surpassed $400M in AUM and delivered $52M in tax savings to clients since launching in March 2021. The platform offers held-away digital asset management, direct Bitcoin ownership, and automated tax-loss harvesting.

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🔥 What’s Hot in Crypto 🔥

Fund of Funds Seeks $20M Raise to Support Sub-$100M Money Managers

Kuma Capital is raising $20M for a new blockchain fund-of-funds and is already actively deploying capital. The fund builds on the strong track record of its 2023 predecessor, which has so far delivered a 5x multiple on invested capital (MOIC) and 1.4x DPI, and continues the firm’s highly selective approach to backing under-the-radar managers with exceptional edge.

Led by managing partner Mitch Rijnders—a crypto investor since 2017 with realized 14x returns and a background in early-stage tech—Kuma focuses on sourcing managers overlooked by larger allocators. The firm deliberately avoids household names and funds with over $100M in assets, instead taking a "Moneyball" approach to crypto VC: identifying small, high-conviction funds operating with sharp strategy and sector expertise. Rijnders is supported by advisors Salil Deshpande and Tyler Evans, both long-time leaders in the space.

The thesis is clear: crypto has reached an inflection point. With ETFs in market, regulatory clarity emerging globally, and major financial institutions entering the space, the asset class now offers a rare combination of normalized risk and enduring return potential. Kuma seeks to capture this theme through concentrated investments in ten top-decile blockchain venture funds, offering limited partners diversified exposure across sub-sectors, geographies, and investment vintages. The firm is targeting net returns within the 4-5x range.

Kuma’s diligence process emphasizes both strategic alignment and operational rigor, including deep dives into team structure, custody and key management protocols, smart contract risk, and service provider relationships. The fund has already made two investments: CVP No Limit Holdings Fund 2 and Fourth Revolution Capital Fund 2.

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Trading Firm Launches Institutional-Grade Crypto SMA Platform Targeting +40% Annualized Returns

Sixteen01 Capital has launched as a dedicated SMA-focused fund manager offering institutional investors access to crypto markets through structured, risk-managed strategies. The firm was built in response to recurring feedback from its network of large allocators: a desire for exposure to digital assets with lower volatility and tighter drawdown controls.

The firm’s current strategies include the Hybrid Strategy, launched in May 2025, which combines funding arbitrage (80%) with a relative-value long/short overlay (20%). It has returned 4.62% in its first three months, with an annualized yield of 20.5%. The Rotation Strategy, launched in June, shifts between BTC-only and a selective basket of majors, depending on prevailing market indicators. It has delivered 12.34% in its first two months, with an annualized CAGR of 83.45%.

Sixteen01 is also running a systematic Multi-Factor Long/Short strategy, combining different factors with volatility-scaling and systematic rebalancing, which targets an expected return of 40% annually with a Sharpe ratio around 3. In the options space, two new vega-neutral strategies—Wing Spread and Term Structure Inversion—have recently gone live, designed to capture volatility dislocations. Both strategies target returns in the 40–46% range with minimal drawdowns

Founded by Haydn Hammond—formerly of Barclays and Natixis—and systematic trader Simon Perrod, the BVI-regulated firm focuses on delta-neutral and market-neutral strategies. The core team includes senior trader Dr. Jinhong Hu, quant researcher Jean Philippe N’Dri, and compliance lead Joseph Shannon, supported by legal counsel from Carey Olsen and analytics from FCA-regulated Block Scholes.

Sixteen01’s roadmap includes on-chain arbitrage, trend following overlays, and machine learning enhancements across its portfolio construction and execution models while also finalizing new strategies in statistical arbitrage and portfolio optimization using advanced deep optimization methods.

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9-Figure Multi-Strat’s Original Team Turns Over as PM Joins +$1B Treasury Company

Jeffrey Park, the final remaining member of the original Bitwise Alpha Strategies team, has departed Bitwise Asset Management to join ProCap BTC as Partner and Chief Investment Officer. Park, who was named the crypto industry’s first “Hedge Fund Rising Star,” previously served as Portfolio Manager of Bitwise Alpha Strategies, the firm’s liquid trading external allocation arm.

His exit marks the complete turnover of Bitwise’s founding Alpha team. The franchise—which now spans multi-strat, SMAs, and options strategies—has scaled to hundreds of millions in assets. Jonathan Man has been appointed the new Portfolio Manager of the Alpha Strategies unit. He was formerly Head of Investment Products at Lionsoul Global, where he launched and managed several institutional digital asset fund of funds strategies.

Park joins ProCap BTC, the investment firm founded by Anthony Pompliano, which plans to go public via a SPAC merger with Columbus Circle Capital Corp. I. ProCap currently holds 4,932 BTC (over $572M) and has announced plans to acquire an additional $1B worth of Bitcoin.

Other departures from Bitwise Alpha include Denyven Peng, the fund’s former Risk Manager, who left at the end of 2024 to join Morpho Labs—an onchain lending network with over $10B in deposits—as Head of Risk. Vincent Molino, previously Head of Operational Due Diligence, exited in March 2025 to become COO at Crypto Insights Group, an institutional diligence platform focused on crypto funds.

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🍿 Blockchain Bytes 🍿

• Marco Manoppo launches SharpByte Capital, a crypto-native investment fund built to capture delta-neutral and asymmetric yield opportunities. The fund combines off-chain yield curation, strategic access to pre-TGE opportunities, and hands-on protocol advisory to deliver institutional-grade returns (SharpByte Capital)

• BlackWood Capital has announced the final close of its inaugural venture fund at $25M. The fund has invested in 19 startups across 9 countries targeting fintech, cleantech, and web3 (BlackWood Capital)

• Gauntlet, a DeFi asset manager overseeing +$1.4B via self-custodial strategies, has expanded its USD Alpha vault—now at $35M TVL and offering 11% 30-day APY—to include allocations to Pendle PT markets. The vault, live on Base, targets institutional-grade stablecoin yields across Base and Ethereum Mainnet (Gauntlet)

• SOLOWIN Holdings, a Hong Kong based financial services firm, has partnered with with Antalpha, the financial services arm of Bitmain, to launch a $100M quantitative fund utilizing algorithmic trading strategies to earn yield on bitcoin (Seeking Alpha)

• Polychain Capital, a San Francisco-based crypto venture firm with $5.6B in AUM, is hiring a Head of Capital Formation (Greenhouse)

• Baus Capital has appointed Jordi Perez as Global Head of Trading. Perez previously served as Chief Trading Officer at Nickel Digital and held the CTO role at XMonetae Capital (Baus Capital). Tom Mazur has been named COO of Wincent, the largest quant hedge fund in digital assets with $680M in AUM (Tom Mazur). Tom Threlfall has publicly announced his appointment as Portfolio Manager at Digital Asset Capital Management (DACM), where he will focus on yield opportunities in the DeFi space (Tom Threlfall)

• JellyC, a Sydney-based crypto fund with over $100M under management, will allocate over $50M to a new "collateral mirroring" program launched by Franklin Templeton, Standard Chartered, and OKX. The initiative aims to attract Australia's superannuation funds by offering capital protection mechanisms designed to mitigate counterparty risk (Capital Brief)

• Lakestar has closed Lakestar Continuation Fund I (LCF I), a $265M VC vehicle— one of the largest of its kind in European VC. Key crypto portfolio companies include: Blockchian.com and Figure (Lakestar)

• Noah Holdings has committed $50M to a private credit digital yield fund, marking its first stablecoin-focused investment. Managed by Olive, Noah’s overseas arm, in partnership with Coinbase, the fund targets yield opportunities in the private credit space using stablecoins (Stock Titan)

• Swiss-based Tyr Capital is launching a Market-Neutral Fund focused on generating consistent yield through arbitrage strategies across market cycles. Tyr’s most recent publicly reported AUM stood at $140M as of 2024 (Global Newswire) 

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