The fund purchased $175 million worth of Bitcoin earlier this year and is on the “go loud, go long” bandwagon ever since.
Enter institutional Bitcoin shilling
SkyBridge Capital, a New York hedge fund founded in 2005, is a recent Bitcoin convert. The firm purchased over $175 million worth of the asset last month — a position it’s already up by millions of dollars on — and yesterday released its first-ever long-term price prediction for BTC.
Introducing the @Skybridge #Bitcoin Fund, a new institutional-grade product to invest in bitcoin. https://t.co/vzQuW3VaOD
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) January 3, 2021
In a press release, it said the newly-launched “Bitcoin Fund LP” would provide mass-affluent investors with an institutional-grade vehicle to gain exposure to the asset, adding that fund had already invested over $310 million in funds investing in Bitcoin in November and December last year.
Founder and managing partner Anthony Scaramucci, who served under the Trump Administration for a few days in 2017, stated Bitcoin remained an asset class in its “early innings” and that the number of institutional quality custody solutions available today created the “right time” to “allocate capital and provide our clients access to the digital assets space.”
The fund’s investment pitch, viewable here, put on an astronomical price target for the asset. It said, “The total market capitalization for gold is $10 trillion vs $500 billion for Bitcoin. If Bitcoin achieves the same market capitalization of gold, the price per Bitcoin will be $535,000.”
#Bitcoin is better at being #Gold than Gold
Gold is popular alt store of value because of hard money properties. #Bitcoin is harder money w/ fixed supply. Gold = $10 trillion mkt cap. Bitcoin = $500 billion mkt cap. We expect Bitcoin to take >50% of mkt share. You do the math.
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) January 4, 2021
Why the investment?
Troy Gayeski, a senior portfolio manager at SkyBridge, said that Bitcoin’s recent performance made it prudent now to allocate a small portion of one’s portfolio to digital assets.
Ray Nolte, SkyBridge Co-Chief Investment Officer and Senior Partner, added:
“With global money printing at an all-time high, Bitcoin offers a strong alternative to gold as a store of value and hedge against future inflation.”
The fund’s narrative is similar to the one echoed by funds like Guggenheim and companies like MicroStrategy. A running concern is that of money printing, inflation, and the lack of trust around gold.
Meanwhile, SkyBridge’s recent market performance for its other funds suggests pivoting to Bitcoin is a way out. As per an FT report, the firm recorded its worst annual performance since 2008 last year, with a drawdown of over 7.5% of its total value.
