Venture Smart Asia’s blockchain division, Arrano Capital, has confirmed it has met all regulatory requirements and launched Hong Kong’s first officially approved mainstream crypto fund.

According to Bloomberg, Arrano’s Chief Investment Officer, Avaneesh Acquilla, has said it is a tracker fund, buying and selling Bitcoin (BTC), and it is hoped to have $100m under management within 12 months. He also said the firm hopes to launch a second fund, actively managed and dealing with a basket of tokens, later in 2020.

Acquilla, who previously spent nine years with Och-Ziff Capital Management in Asia, and seven years with Goldman Sachs and UBS in London, said the fund was launched in response to market demand from “professional investors who are increasingly focused on Bitcoin as an alternative store of value.”

The Hong Kong SFC first announced formal regulation of the cryptocurrency space in October 2018, when it decided to regulate exchanges. Although some other firms, like Diginex, have since been authorised to offer products to specified professional investors, Arrano’s new crypto fund is the first to be officially approved for a wider mainstream market.

AYO.NEWS says:

Though the scale of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis was not appreciated by markets initially, the unprecedented global economic crash it is now likely to trigger could massively increase the interest in Bitcoin as a ‘safe haven’ store of value. If it does, funds like Arrano’s are going to be well placed to ride the wave.

AYO.NEWS says features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020.