Info on Crypto Hedge funds?
Anyone work at a crypto hf (like Pantera, Polychain, etc.) or know anyone that does? I watched an interview with Olaf Carlson-Wee and it seems like an interesting space. I'd like to hear about people's experiences, how legitimate these places are, and what comp is like.
I spoke to a bunch of these guys in 2017. At the time, a lot of them were getting 3 and 30 with very long lockups even in cases where they had literally no money management experience. By no experience, I mean literally no experience in managing money. Most of them are the types that would be bottom bucket if they got a job at a bank but generally they had almost no finance experience at all. the fee structures at the time indicated there was a lot of demand at the time to deploy money at basically anything. if you recall the coins that were ICO’ing at the time, you’ll remember most were an utter farce. When the demand is truly there, you can get away with basically anything from your investor base I guess.
Crypto funds like these promoted very young people to be partners at a young age. I see this as a huge positive - it’s an industry with a lot of opportunity. but I’ve also heard it’s just frankly a sketchy industry. most of the people I met just aren’t that impressive. (When spotting frauds, Peter Lynch often said something like “if you see an executive who looks like he’s getting paid far more than he’s worth you might want to avoid that kind of company.”) The consistent vibe you get from crypto fund folk is that there are the swashbuckler type that got lucky and was aboard the right ship at the right time. Some of them have essentially monetized their Twitter following with an investment business. Others are just opportunists. Some are true believers in Bitcoin.
There’s not many real securities laws in crypto and there’s a lot of behavior I’ve heard these funds engaging in sounds plainly unethical or criminal. I personally didn’t want to associate with this type of person, which is a large reason why I was uninterested in these roles.
Sometimes the best investment opportunities come when you go where it is darkest and look for obscure / weird / unpopular stuff. A lot of the earliest long/short managers in the 1980s were weird dudes; a far cry from a lot of the conformity you see today. It’s easy to forget that these equity long/short guys did sketchy stuff back in the day; you used to be able to just ask a CFO of a company whether he’d beat earnings and that was OK decades ago. We’ve all of course seen Wolf of Wall Street, which I’m sure was at least 5% true as a representation of 1990s high finance and should give you some pause on immediately being judgmental of crypto folk today. Crypto is I guess somewhat like that though I suspect probably still 10x more sketchy. (I am trying to be balanced here but it’s worth saying at least the bankers in the 1980s were performing a real service to real businesses, whereas many of these crypto companies seem to serve no clear purpose at all.)
that said, the lack of regulation and grownups means that the world is sort of your oyster I guess. I feel like I indirectly know a lot of young millionaires minted through starting crypto funds etc. today there’s a few that are actually quite brilliant and run a tight ship, but these are still the exception in my opinion.
Very interesting. Thanks for the response.
I talked to one crypto shop around the same time as you and got the same vibe. They had raised decent AUM but had no real business or investment plan, and I figured I was better off trading this stuff on my own while working at a regular job. The crypto space is more saturated now than in 2017 but I think there is still real opportunity there. As you said, the best investment ideas come from places others are not looking, and these shops resemble what hedge funds looked like 20-30 years ago.
Who do you think the good ones are and why?
Thanks for the write-up! Do I need to attend a target community college to break in?
Yes they prefer ITT technical institute
very helpful, thanks!
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Yes, but Bobby is pretty on point. Have spoken with a lot of these funds though, happy to chat further privately
Are these guys mining coins or just trading?
Personally, I will trade these things with personal money but wouldn't feel comfortable investing other people's money in an asset class where a very small fraction own 90% or more of said asset.
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