“We believe the cryptocurrency markets represent huge growth,” said SkyBridge founder Anthony Scarramucci.
SkyBridge Capital is trying to shift the majority of its assets under management (AUM) to digital assets, as the sector represents “tremendous potential” for the firm.
Former US politician Anthony Scaramucci launched the hedge fund in 2005, and it first dabbled in Bitcoin (BTC) in late 2020. The firm’s overall AUM is claimed to be around $7.3 billion(R 114bn) with money invested in other hedge funds, late-stage private technology businesses, and real estate.
Skybridge now runs a $7 million ( R 110m)Bitcoin Fund, among other things, and has been intensively seeking to get a spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Scaramucci told Bloomberg that the firm is restructuring itself to “eventually be a premier cryptocurrency asset manager and adviser:”
“During the pandemic, we decided that we needed to relitigate our entire portfolio.” There is a pre-pandemic world and a post-pandemic world, and the post-pandemic world has a lot more government deficits—it has a lot more uncertainty about growth.”
“In our opinion, the cryptocurrency markets represent huge growth.” It comes with volatility, to be sure, but I think we’d prefer that trajectory over the next three to five years,” he added.
SkyBridge’s director of business development, John Darsie, stated that the firm’s rising focus on crypto was brought about by a “large downturn in the credit portion” of the firm’s hedge fund manager portfolio.
Seeking investments in stronger growth-oriented managers, the business is currently searching for allocations across several crypto assets and blockchain initiatives, with Darsie remarking that the SkyBridge is “very positive on the industry.”
“What we chose to do was invest a portion of that capital that was previously assigned to credit managers straight into crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum—but then also rotate funds into crypto-asset managers like Multicoin, Polychain, Pantera, and folks of that sort,” he explained.
The upbeat remarks come only weeks after Scaramucci stated that the blockchain industry has a very promising future but is concerned about some “absolutely despicable” U.S. politicians who could stymie the local sector’s progress.
Speaking with Bloomberg about the SEC, Scaramucci seems somewhat optimistic that the agency will approve a spot BTC ETF if a few more elements come into place, while also emphasizing that their application denial in January was not necessarily “specific” to them.
“I believe the SEC is taking the position that because cash trading of Bitcoin occurs all over the world, they do not have a single market-clearing for all buys and sells.” As a result, they’re concerned about price manipulation.”
“However, because of the transparency of the markets, I believe they’ll become more comfortable with it over time,” he continued.
