“I'm sorry, but there's nothing else I can do to help you.”
Samara Asset Group (FRA:ECV) CEO Patrick Lurie had some choice words when it came to explaining how much opportunity, and perhaps myopia, exists in the financial world when it comes to Bitcoin.
in Recent Twitter spaces, Lowry laid out his vision for the future financial system that uses the Bitcoin network at every level. From serving as a store of value similar to “digital gold,” to being “the source of global financial trade in trade, money, and capital markets,” the opportunities abound.
Lurie believes that Bitcoin may become “infinitely more valuable than anything Satoshi ever imagined and anything the Bitcoin community has ever contemplated.” Despite this, capital allocators, in his view, are somehow missing the boat, likening them to horses being led into water. For Samara CEO, this is all the better for those who want to take this adventure.
MicroStrategy imitators are coming
Having worked in Bitcoin digital assets, first in Deutsche Digital Assets Followed by Cryptology (which later became Samara Asset Group), Lowry expressed the view that Bitcoin specifically is poised for a renaissance.
Primarily, he believes MicroStrategy was just the first in a long line of imitators to come, and likens his own Malta-based Samara Asset Group as one such company. “In Samara, we have acquired the largest amount of Bitcoin over the past two years.” For companies that want to follow suit, he believes the recent changes to fair value accounting rules by the FASB are more impactful than most in the market give them credit for, saying: “I really think the FASB ruling is more important, more An advance for Bitcoin, compared to a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.”
Join the conversation, Dylan LeClair, Bitcoin Magazine The institutional leader and director of Bitcoin strategy at Metaplanet (TYO: 3350) echoed a similar view. LeClair and Japan-based Metaplanet started out as the first stock to act as a proxy for Bitcoin in Japanese markets, offering investors a way to receive exposure to Bitcoin despite what he described as an unfavorable legal and tax environment for holding Bitcoin itself.
LeClair believes that Metaplanet and MicroStrategy will not be the only ones using a Bitcoin strategy, but that those who are the first will benefit the most: “It's the people and institutions on the margins that have deep conviction and are the first movers. And I think that's where the advantage lies.”
LeClair praised companies like Jack Dorsey's Block for their efforts Last ad They revealed plans to invest 10% of the company's total profits in Bitcoin. Shortly after, Block's CEO went on to predict that Bitcoin's price would reach “at least $1 million” by the end of the decade.
Alpha is up for grabs
For Lowry, it's not just the fact that Bitcoin's value could rise, but that many companies that were in a position to capture that rally have been completely destroyed in the bear market of 2022 and 2023. . “It might be higher than 90%, and maybe 95% of crypto managers were wiped out.” In other words, the playing field is wide open thanks to the GBTC arbitrage failure that led to the collapse of the crypto house of cards.
Samara Alpha Managementa subsidiary of US-based Samara Asset Group, is working to fill this gap in the market by Bitcoin Alpha Contest In partnership with Bitcoin Pro Magazine. as part of Bitcoin Demo Day 2024 In Nashville, the competition seeks to award $1 million in seed capital to startup Bitcoin fund managers while also giving them the infrastructure needed to launch their funds.
For the inaugural Bitcoin Alpha competition in 2023, Animus Technologies Inc. has been selected. For its strategy that makes use of artificial intelligence to analyze and benefit from changes in market sentiment. Maximilian Pace, CEO of Animus, noted that Samara's seed capital and operational infrastructure enabled his company to “focus on what we excel at, which is signal generation and value creation through research.”
Lowry sees the globally distributed human brain of talented digital asset traders, like Animus, as a largely untapped resource. “You have some of the brightest and most talented managers in crypto who are only managing a few assets via SMAs or frankly via Twitter. These are groups, these are individuals, I would like to empower them by giving them the opportunity to have their own fund.”
But these individuals don't want to spend a quarter of a million or half a million dollars to become their own asset managers… These groups don't know how to manage risk, they don't know how to manage auditors. They may not even know what jurisdiction they should set up their general partnership or LP in… That's (why) we started the Bitcoin Alpha competition last year… (and now) we're very much looking forward to seeing who the principals will come out of competing for Bitcoin Nashville in July.”
Click here To apply for 2024 Bitcoin Alpha Contest as part of Bitcoin Demo Day 2024, Nashville