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Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

Crypto for Institutions 4: Ari Paul – Exploiting Inefficiencies in Crypto Trading (Capital Allocators, EP.183)

Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

Ted Seides – Allocator and Asset Management Expert

Investing, Capitalallocation, Business

4.8806 Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ari Paul is the co-founder and chief investment officer of BlockTower Capital, a crypto and blockchain investment firm he started alongside Matthew Goetz in 2017 with backing from Andreesen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. He started his career as a trader at Susquehanna International Group, and later found his way to the University of Chicago endowment as a portfolio manager, overseeing an internal hedge fund portfolio and assessing risk for the university’s $8 billion endowment.
 
Our conversation covers Ari’s early lessons in trading, discovery of crypto while at University of Chicago endowment, obstacles for institutional participation, and launch of BlockTower in 2017 as a result.  We discuss active management in the crypto markets, research and trading, portfolio construction, opportunities in NFTs and gaming, risks, and the exciting landscape over the coming years.
 
While this episode concludes our current mini-series, we’ve just scratched the surface on crypto, blockchain protocols, and institutional engagement in the space. In the coming months, we’ll dive deeper into the evolving ecosystem with more key participants and ideas.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Capital Allocators is brought to you by Ten East, an investment platform for sophisticated investors to access private markets.

0:10.5

Ten East brings benefits of having your own family office without the cost and headaches of doing so.

0:16.8

It's founded and led by Michael LaFelle, former deputy executive managing member of Davidson Kempner.

0:24.2

Michael and his investment team offer members the opportunity to co-invest by offering at their

0:29.1

discretion. Michael and his team source, diligence, and commit material personal capital to each

0:35.3

investment. The opportunities shared on the Ten East platform

0:38.9

offer exposure to private credit, real estate, niche venture and private equity, and other

0:44.5

idiosyncratic investments that typically aren't available through traditional channels.

0:49.2

The principles have over a decade track record of investing in these types of exposures

0:53.5

across more than 350

0:55.7

transactions. Post-investment, the Tennis team conducts ongoing monitoring and reporting,

1:01.8

just as you'd expect from an institutional investment organization. I've known Michael for about a

1:07.0

decade, and after becoming impressed by the quality of 10 East offerings, its research

1:11.6

process, and high-quality investment team, I became an advisor to the organization, an investor

1:17.1

in multiple offerings. You can learn more and join me as a member at 10east.com. That's the number 10,

1:25.0

east. C.O.

1:40.4

Our latest mini-series, crypto for institutions, is brought to you by Anchor sponsor Coinbase and leading crypto service providers, Chainalysis, Falcon X, M.G. Stover, and Bitwise.

1:47.3

This four-part miniseries over the next two weeks is my attempt to learn alongside you

1:52.8

about the growing interest from early mover institutions in introducing cryptocurrency

1:58.0

exposure to their portfolios. With so much to learn, we focused on

2:03.3

investing, the macro case, the path to entry, and investment strategies to pursue. My conversation

2:10.8

with Chris Dixon in January is a nice add-on to this series and is replayed in the feed.

...

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