Pantera Capital, a US-based asset management firm is looking to launch a $1.25 billion (roughly Rs. 10,200 crore) blockchain fund. The development came to light after Pantera chief Dan Morehead spoke about it in a recent interview with Bloomberg. The fund aims to meet the growing appetite for digital assets, especially among institutional investors. Through this fund, the platform intends to bring back investment in the sector after the industry was financially starved due to the recent price slump.
“We want to provide liquidity for people who are giving up because we are still very bullish on the next 10 or 20 years. Unfortunately, crypto pricing has been linked to risk assets, which I don’t think is true. My hope is that crypto will soon double from the macro market,” Bloomberg quoted Morehead says.
Pantera’s fund, which could tentatively close around May next year, will focus on investing in equities and digital tokens.
The company introduced its first cryptocurrency fund in August 2020, when it raised $165 million (roughly Rs. 1,350 crore).
As countries around the world tighten regulatory frameworks around crypto, the fund aims to promote promising Web3 and blockchain projects to offset the effects of the recent market downturn.
Losses from cryptocurrency hacks surged nearly 60 percent to $1.9 billion (roughly Rs. 15,100 crore) in the first seven months of the year, also fueled by an increase in funds stolen from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, according to Chainalysis.
The crypto industry raked in $14.2 billion (roughly Rs. 1,13,500 crore) with 725 deals in the first half of this year, KPMG said in its recent report.
The findings highlight that crypto-focused investment figures in the first half of 2022 have doubled in all years prior to 2021. Trade Republic, FireBlocks, FTX Crypto Exchange, and Consensus have emerged as the top four venture capital firms investing in crypto. .
“(This) highlights the increasing maturity of the space and the breadth of technologies and solutions attracting investment,” the report said.
