Pantera Capital aims to secure $1.25 billion for its second blockchain fund
Pantera Capital is looking to raise $1.25 billion for its second blockchain fund to invest in digital assets and stocks, founder Dan Morehead told Bloomberg. The firm’s plan for another blockchain comes as it seeks to capitalize on strong interest in digital assets among institutional investors.
Pantera closes another blockchain fund due to strong institutional interest
US crypto hedge fund Pantera Capital intends to secure $1.25 billion for its second blockchain fund to capitalize on the robust interest in crypto among institutional investors, according to Bloomberg. The hedge fund wants to close the new fund by May, founder Dan Morehead told Bloomberg.
Pantera plans to use the new fund to buy more digital tokens and shares, Morehead said. He added that the new fund will also buy more shares in companies Pantera has already invested in after their valuations shrank due to a tough macroeconomic environment.
“We want to provide liquidity to people who are kind of giving up because we’re still very bullish on the next 10 or 20 years.”
– Dan Morehead, Founder and CEO of Pantera Capital
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Institutional investors who are confident in Crypto’s long-term prospects
Pantera announced its new blockchain fund a year after it launched its first, which aimed to raise $600 million. But that number rose to more than $1 billion, Pantera said earlier this year, following the fund’s strong performance in 2022.
According to Pantera’s note, the firm’s Liquid Token Fund and early-stage token fund returned 385.4% and 294.6%, respectively. Overall, crypto funds returned a total of 214% last year.
The move comes as Pantera, the world’s largest crypto hedge fund by assets under management (AUM), looks to increase its investments in cryptocurrencies, which are now trading at multi-year lows due to rampant inflation and high interest rates. Bitcoin continues to trade below the $20,000 threshold, and it and Ether have lost over 50% in the past six months.
The ongoing crypto winter has forced several crypto firms into liquidation, especially after the Terra-LUNA crash in May. While the correlation between stocks and cryptocurrencies increased recently, Morehead believes this will not be the case in the future.
“Unfortunately, crypto pricing has become correlated with risk assets, which I honestly don’t think needs to be true. My hope is that crypto will soon disconnect from the macro markets.”
– Morehead added.
But even in such a difficult period, institutional investors continued to bet on the crypto market this year. Last month, the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock entered into a landmark deal with Coinbase to offer crypto trading services to institutions.
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About the author
Tim Fries is the co-founder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate in the investment team at RW Baird’s US Private Equity division and is also a co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
