“I'm sorry, but there's nothing else I can do to help you.”
Samara Asset Group (FRA: ECV) CEO Patrick Lowry had some choice words when explaining how much opportunity, and perhaps shortsightedness, exists in the financial universe when it comes to bitcoin.
in a x.com/i/spaces/1djGXNRzQOXxZ”>Recent twitter Spaces, Lowry laid out his vision for a future financial system that utilizes the bitcoin network at all levels. From serving as a “digital gold”-style store of value to being “the origin of global financial commerce in commerce, money and capital markets,” opportunities abound.
Lowry believes bitcoin can become “infinitely more valuable than anything Satoshi ever imagined and anything the bitcoin community is thinking about.” Despite this, those who allocate capital, in his opinion, are somehow losing their way, comparing them to horses being led to water. For the general director of Samara, that is much better for those who are willing to take the step.
MicroStrategy imitators are coming
Having made a career in bitcoin in digital assets, first in German digital assets followed by Cryptology (which later became Samara Asset Group), Lowry expressed his view that bitcoin specifically is primed for a renaissance.
Mainly, he believes MicroStrategy was just the first in a long line of imitators to come, and likened his Malta-based Samara Asset Group as one of those companies. “In (Samara), we have been acquiring as many bitcoins as humanly possible for the past few years.” For companies that want to do the same, he believes the FASB's recent changes to fair value accounting rules have more impact than most of the market realizes, saying, “I really think the FASB's decision FASB is more monumental, more advanced for bitcoin, than the bitcoin ETF.”
Joining the conversation, Dylan LeClair, bitcoin Magazine The institutional leader and head of bitcoin strategy at Metaplanet (TYO: 3350) echoed a similar perspective. LeClair and Japan-based Metaplanet have broken ground as the first stocks to serve as a proxy for bitcoin in Japanese markets, offering investors a means to receive exposure to bitcoin despite what it described as a legal and unfavorable tax to hold bitcoin itself.
LeClair believes that Metaplanet and MicroStrategy will not be the only ones to employ a bitcoin strategy, but those who are the first to do so will benefit the most: “It is the people and institutions on the margins that have a deep conviction that they are the first to move . And I think that's where the advantage is.”
LeClair praised companies like Jack Dorsey's Block for their bitcoin-product-profit-into-bitcoin-purchases/?sh=3dd61b6f366b”>recent announcement in which they revealed plans to invest 10% of the company's gross profits in bitcoin. Shortly after, Block's CEO predicted a bitcoin price of “at least $1 million” by the end of the decade.
The Alpha is at stake
For Lowry, it's not just the fact that bitcoin can increase in value, but that many of the companies that were in a position to capture that appreciation were absolutely decimated in the bear market of 2022 and 2023. “There was a complete collapse of the market. . “It could be higher than 90%, it could be that 95% of cryptocurrency managers have been eliminated.” In other words, the playing field is wide open thanks to the GBTC arbitrage fiasco that brought down the cryptocurrency house of cards.
Samara Alfa Managementa subsidiary of US-based Samara Asset Group, is working to fill that gap in the market through the bitcoin Alpha Competition in alliance with bitcoin Pro Magazine. As part of bitcoin Presentation Day 2024 In Nashville, the competition seeks to provide $1 million in seed capital to emerging bitcoin fund managers while providing them with the infrastructure needed to get their fund off the ground.
For the inaugural bitcoin Alpha competition in 2023, Animus Technologies Inc. was selected for its strategy of leveraging artificial intelligence to analyze and capitalize on changes in market sentiment. Maximilian Pace, CEO of Animus, said Samara's seed capital and operational infrastructure allowed his company to “focus on what we do best, which is signal formation and value creation through research.”
Lowry sees the globally distributed hive mind of talented digital asset traders, like Animus, as a largely untapped resource. “He has some of the brightest and most talented cryptocurrency managers who only manage a couple of assets through SMA or, frankly, through twitter. These are groups, and these are individuals, who I would like to empower 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 in which jurisdiction they should set up their general partnership or LP… That's why (why) we started the bitcoin Alpha Competition last year… (and now) we're eager to see what managers emerge from the competition . for bitcoin Nashville in July.”
Click HERE to apply for 2024 bitcoin Alpha Competition as part of Presentation day at bitcoin 2024, Nashville
