With $29.4 billion under his management, it’s safe to say that Swensen has faith in these cryptocurrency funds, giving Bitcoin and its peers a much-needed vote of confidence. Swensen’s investment team has already allocated capital towards Andreessen Horowitz’s inaugural $300 million crypto fund, but it closed early this summer.
Other forays by Swensen into the cryptocurrency space include an investment in Paradigm, a blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused fund that was started by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam in conjunction with former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang.
Swensen’s investing prowess is the stuff of legends, dating back to 1985 when Yale’s endowment fund was a paltry $1 billion compared to its current size. Per CNBC, “Yale’s endowment returned an annualized 7.4 percent in the past decade and 11.8 percent over 20 years, according to its annual report. The fund gained 12.3 percent from June 2017 through June 2018, the university announced this week. Harvard University, with a $39.2 billion endowment, posted a 10 percent gain.”
Bitcoin ETF in 2019 if not 2018?
In a recent Bloomberg “Trillions” podcast, managing director of ETF.com; Tom Lydon, ETF Trends publisher; and Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA discussed topics in a roundtable discussion that included cryptocurrencies. They were asked whether a cryptocurrency-related ETF would finally make it to the capital markets.
“No,” said Rosenbluth. “The SEC has concerns about it. There isn’t the data to back up that this can be handled in a way without fraud–it’s a hard thing to overcome proving that.”
“SEC is looking at it for sure; they’re trying to get their arms around it,” said Lydon. “It will happen by the end of 2019.”
“I think futures-based products is where this is going to happen,” said Nadig. “It’s really hard for the SEC to say you can invest in oil futures and natural gas futures, but you can’t invest in crypto futures, they settle the same way, they trade the same way. I think it’s just a matter of time and the time is 2019.”
For more information on the cryptocurrency market, visit the Bitcoin category.