Bitwise CEO explains how bitcoin’s “magical” volatility will woo Wall Street firms
Show notes
Bitwise, the $1 billion-plus crypto asset management firm, announced a Series B funding round to further advance its index and fund products on Wall Street. With the raise, Bitwise became the latest startup in the digital asset industry to raise fresh capital amid a period of heightened interest from institutions and their clients. In this episode of The Scoop, Bitwise co-founder and CEO Hunter Horsley explained how the industry is creating access for new classes of investors. In Horsley’s view, traditional portfolio managers and financial advisors remain an untapped market for the nascent crypto asset management industry. In terms of the volatility, Hunter sees this as a positive. For Bitwise, volatility means the opportunity for financial advisors to enter the cryptocurrency market by adopting crypto as another asset class in a client or portfolio’s diversification strategy. “The volatility of crypto is a magical gift for a financial advisor. What do I mean by that? If you're an individual who downloads one of the incredible apps that you have today, you see this jagged price chart, this twenty-four-hour price chart. Right. It's very scary, prone to emotional trading. And that's the scary version of volatility. If you're a financial advisor constructing a portfolio that you want to have certain low correlations, you want to have a certain Sharpe ratio, you want to balance across different asset classes. Well, in that case, crypto volatility is actually very useful.” Looking back to Bitwise's latest round, the startup managed to attract notable backers. Indeed, some of the investors involved in raising the Series B round were industry heavy-hitters.As Horsley put it: “[The Series B Funding was] collected by Elad Gil, one of the most accomplished technology investors, Electric Capital, one of the leading crypto venture capital firms and some renowned Wall Street investors; Dan Loeb's Third Point, Daniel Ochs Willoughby, Louis Bacon’s Moore Strategic Ventures, Henry Kravis, Stanley Druckenmiller and [Bridgewater CEO] Dave McCormick.” This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Eventus, Kraken, and Exodus Eventus is the leading global provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance, transaction monitoring and market risk solutions. Eventus offers a powerful, award-winning trade surveillance platform that is easy to deploy, customize and operate. Eventus is proven in the most complex, high-volume and real-time environments and supports many of the industry’s leading crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Gemini, ErisX and OSL. The company’s rapidly growing client base relies on Eventus’ responsive support and product development teams to overcome its most pressing regulatory challenges. About Kraken Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today. About Exodus Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.
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