Israeli Investment House Offers Crypto Funds for Institutions
November 19 2018 - 5:42AM
ADVFN Crypto NewsWire
Silver Castle Ltd., Israel’s first dedicated cryptocurrency
investment firm for institutional and accredited investors,
launched two funds this month and expects to have $50 million under
management by the end of the year.
The launch comes after a bad year for Bitcoin, which has fallen
more than 70 percent from a record high last December. Currently
there are more than 370 crypto funds managing as much as $10
billion in assets, according to Autonomous Research, a minute
amount in the investment universe. That hasn’t deterred Silver
Castle.
“We spent close to a year building robust infrastructure for
managing other people’s money at the level of institutional grade
with very, very high security,” Chief Executive Officer Eli Mizroch
said.
The company’s lineup
includes Zvi Ziv, former chief executive officer of Bank Hapoalim
Ltd., Israel’s largest bank by assets; and Gabriella Ravid, founder
and former CEO of Psagot Ofek Investment House, the country’s
largest investment fund.
While most Wall Street players have stayed on the sidelines of
the cryptocurrency craze, some -- such as Fidelity Investments --
are taking the plunge. The mutual fund giant decided in October to
start a digital-asset serving business for hedge funds, family
offices and trading firms, a move Mizroch said “is awesome for
everybody.”
Gadi Isaev, founding partner of the Israeli Blockchain
Association, called Silver Castle’s launch “a landmark event for
the entire Israeli market,” as its team is composed not just “of
leaders of the Israeli financial industry, but its pioneers.”
Israel’s blockchain ecosystem was important in the group’s
building of the investment house, Mizroch said. The industry today
numbers 129 companies, up from 42 in 2015, according to industry
promoter Startup Nation Central. Forty initial-coin offerings have
come out of Israel in the last few years, three of them among the
20 largest ever, Mizroch said.
Silver Castle’s first fund is both long- and short- momentum
driven, based on an algorithmic trading system that picks the five
biggest coins by market capitalization. It has been used in-house
for over a year and the portfolio has achieved “high double-digit”
returns in dollar terms despite Bitcoin’s plunge this year, Mizroch
said.
Lots of Potential
The second fund is fully invested, automated and offers a basket
of the top 10 coins, weighted according to an algorithm. A third,
token-based fund that will launch by the end of the year will
invest in ICOs.
“There is a lot of potential in using blockchain and everything
is going to try and move there,” said Ziv, who ran Bank Hapoalim
for almost six years. “I believe herein lies the biggest potential
in the financial world.”
(An earlier version of this story was corrected to say
Fidelity’s unit is a servicing business.)
— With assistance by Nour Al Ali
Source: Bloomberg
By
Gwen Ackerman
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