Israeli Investment Firm Silver Castle Unveils New Crypto Funds for Institutions

Silver Castle Ltd., Israel’s first dedicated cryptocurrency investment firm for institutional and accredited investors, launched two funds this month and expects to have $50 million under management by the end of the year, Bloomberg reported on November 18, 2018.

Launching Products for Institutional Investors

The market slump the crypto industry has been facing since the second half of November 2018 wasn’t enough to discourage Silver Castle Ltd, an Israeli crypto-focused firm, from launching two new products for institutional investors.

The products the company has launched are in the form of crypto funds, which the firm anticipates will reach 50 million U.S dollars before the year ends. There are currently more than 370 crypto funds managing as much as $10 billion in assets, according to Autonomous Research, a minute amount in the investment universe.

However, Silver Castle doesn’t seem to be deterred by the current market atmosphere and has jumped head first into the project. Gadi Isaev, the founding partner of the Israeli Blockchain Association, called Silver Castle’s launch “a landmark event for the entire Israeli market,” as its team is composed not just “of leaders of the Israeli financial industry, but its pioneers.”

According to Bloomberg, Silver Castle’s first fund is both long- and short- momentum drove, based on an algorithmic trading system that picks the five most significant coins by market capitalization. It has been used in-house for over a year, and the portfolio has achieved “high double-digit” returns in dollar terms despite Bitcoin’s plunge this year, the company’s CEO Eli Mizroch told the publication.

The second, fully-invested fund will be automated and offer a basket of the top ten coins, weighted according to an algorithm. A third, token-based fund that will launch by the end of the year will invest in ICOs.

Impressive Portfolio in a Fertile Blockchain Market

Its exceptional staff could in part explain the excitement about the launch of Silver Castle’s crypto fund. The company’s lineup includes Zvi Ziv, the former chief executive officer of Bank Hapoalim Ltd., Israel’s largest bank by assets; and Gabriella Ravid, founder and former CEO of Psagot Ofek Investment House, the country’s largest investment fund.

Israel’s blockchain ecosystem was important in the group’s building of the investment house, Mizroch told Bloomberg. According to industry promoter Startup Nation Central, Israel now has 129 crypto and blockchain companies, up from 42 in 2015. Mizroch added that 40 ICOs have come out of Israel so far, with three of them being among the 20 largest ever.

Zvi Ziv, who ran Bank Hapoalim for almost six years, said that there was a lot of potential in using blockchain and that most industries will try and move their operations on a distributed ledger. “I believe herein lies the biggest potential in the financial world,” he added.