Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director, said that nearly half of SkyBridge’s $3.5 billion in assets is already invested in cryptocurrency. Along with bitcoin, he mentioned Ethereum, the Algorand system, and publicly traded crypto-related equities.
Scaramucci believes the investing firm’s holdings could triple to $10 billion if the majority of its assets were invested in crypto-assets. “We’ve changed and repositioned the company to ultimately be a premier bitcoin asset manager and advisor,” he told Bloomberg.
Scaramucci said that the decision to switch to cryptocurrency came as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, in contrast to the company’s former strategy of concentrating on high-profile hedge firms. In addition to the resulting increase in inflation, below-trend GDP growth of 1.6% over the last decade has forced investors to reconsider where growth is truly occurring.
“We believe the cryptocurrency markets provide significant opportunities for us,” Scaramucci added. “It comes with volatility, to be sure, but I believe we’d enjoy that trend over the next three to five years.”
In the same Bloomberg interview, SkyBridge CEO John Darsie elaborated on this newfound approach. “We experienced a significant dip in the credit component of the portfolio as a consequence of the epidemic,” Darsie said. “So we decided to put a part of the funds that had previously been allocated to credit managers straight into crypto assets like bitcoin and Ethereum.”
SkyBridge has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to establish a new vehicle for investing in bitcoin mining as part of this move. The investment vehicle, SkyBridge BTC Mining L.P., has raised about $7 million, according to the filing.
Scaramucci said that he became interested in cryptocurrencies just before his brief stint as communications director at the Trump White House. Hearing Treasury officials discussing the use of blockchain technology for possible dollar digitalization, “It was a little bit of an awakening for me,” Scaramucci stated.
