Fortress is launching a Bitcoin Fund
SecondMarket has launched the first U.S. based Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) back in September. Now there have been words that Fortress Investment Group is going to launch its own Bitcoin Fund. It is reported that the investment vehicle may be an unlisted Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), similar to BIT.
In October, Chief Investment Officer of Fortress, Michael Novogratz gave hints to the firms interest in crypto-currency by saying “Put a little money in Bitcoin…Come back in a few years and it’s going to be worth a lot.”
It appears that there is likely some relationship between the effort of Fortress and the San Francisco-based Pantera Capital whose clients are known to include several Fortress executives. Pantera has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC) and investment advisor entity which indicated that around $150 million has been raised for Bitcoin vehicle, with 26 investors contributing at least $250,000 each. That would make the fund much larger than the SecondMarket’s offering.
Earlier this year, another ETF was filed with the SEC called the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, by the Winklevoss twins of Facebook fame. But the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust remain stucked in regulatory limbo since its initial filing.
SecondMarket CEO, Barry Silbert predicted 2014 would be “the Year of Wall Street and Bitcoin.” It seems to be shaping up towards that way.
