This bitcoin hedge fund was top five in 2024

If you wanted to outperform bitcoin last year, this hedge fund would have fit the bill.

210k Capital, the hedge fund for UTXO Management – which is the investing arm of BTC Inc., of Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin Conference fame – was the fifth best performing single major hedge fund in 2024 according to HFR. It returned 164% net of fees in 2024. Single manager hedge funds are run by one entity, versus multi-manager or fund-to-fund hedge funds, which have multiple portfolio managers.

In HFR’s recap of its 2024 Global Hedge Fund Industry Report Q4 2024, the research firm revealed that cryptocurrency-focused hedge funds were “the leading area of overall [hedge fund] industry performance” in 2024. HFR’s index for cryptocurrency funds returned 59.81% in 2024.

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UTXO Management’s banner 2024 performance puts it in conversation with leading hedge funds that focus on traditional assets and industries. And it has bitcoin to thank for that – or more directly, bitcoin companies. 

UTXO Management’s Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer, Tyler Evans, said that the fund’s 2024 returns chiefly stemmed from its investment in bitcoin strategy companies, principally Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and Metaplanet.

“Over the last 12 months, we went very hard into the bitcoin treasury-play thesis as as we really saw it play out with what Saylor is doing, and the opportunity to really globalize it…So we did that pretty heavily in 2024, with both Strategy as well as Metaplanet out of Japan, where we were the first bitcoin investors in the company,” Evans told Blockspace.

He said that the hedge fund holds 80% of its portfolio in bitcoin equities, which were a “big factor that drove [210k Capital’s] out-performance in 2024. A portion of that 80% includes public bitcoin miners, but the real money makers have been Metaplanet and Strategy, the latter of which 210k Capital held since the early days of its bitcoin strategy.  

These companies, Evans explained, offer a novel form of securitized bitcoin exposure that makes it easier for everything from institutional firms to IRAs to pension funds to hold bitcoin-adjacent assets. As a result, “the investable landscape has grown significantly over the last few years,” he said, and opened up the door to “registered investment advisors, wealth managers, funds, and sophisticated family offices.” This marks a shift from the fund’s early days when it courted self-made, high-net worth individuals who were typically more active investors managing their own portfolio to more passive investors whom manage pools of capital.

“We saw the demand for institutional capital to get exposure to Bitcoin in some form or fashion, and the role that these Treasury companies can serve is securitizing bitcoins for fixed income investors, the insurance funds, or the mutual funds, or all these institutional allocators that have very defined mandates of what types of instruments that they can invest in. And that's really the beauty of the whole playbook is securitizing bitcoin in these different formats that make it so that institutional allocators can invest into it.”

Of course, the slate of bitcoin ETFs that went live last January have plumbed liquidity as well. With BlackRock on board – not to mention it recommending a 5% allocation to bitcoin – Evans said the Overton Window for how investors view bitcoin is shifting, so much so, he pointed out, that the Wisconsin Teacher’s pension now holds bitcoin ETFs, as is the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. 

The fund’s 2025 outlook and global bitcoin treasury focus 

The only thing harder than winning the championship is defending your title. And with bitcoin down year-to-date, it raises the question: how can 210k Capital 2024’s stellar year?

Evans said that the fund hedges its positions with a number of auctions, but it’s also still “very bullish” on bitcoin in 2025. It’s even more bullish on exporting the Strategy strategy to other financial markets, saying “pretty much all of them” are up for grabs.

“We think that there's an opportunity for a bitcoin treasury company in every tier-one financial market globally,” he said. 

UTXO Management had a large hand in standing up Metaplanet’s bitcoin strategy, with Tyler Evans serving as an independent director and UTXO Management partner Dylan Leclair acting as Metaplanet’s head of bitcoin strategy. Another UTXO portfolio company, The Smarter Web Company, is set to IPO on the Aquis Exchange in the U.K. this week.

Read: England’s Metaplanet? The Smarter Web Company eyes UK IPO with bitcoin strategy

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When evaluating new markets for bitcoin strategy companies, Evans said UTXO Management looks for asymmetries that would give local investors an incentive to invest. In Japan, for example, there are no Japanese bitcoin ETFs, and access to American ones is limited. This fact – plus Japan’s low interest rates and a lower capital gains tax on equities cryptocurrencies – make it ripe for Metaplanet to reap marketshare.

Currently, UTXO has its eye on multiple markets to incubate bitcoin treasury companies, including Latin America, Central America, the Middle East, Australia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Some of these are already in the works “at various stages of maturity,” Evans teased, with some in the IPO planning stage and others raising capital.

He concluded by saying interest in the bitcoin treasury strategy is growing at a rapid clip, so don’t be surprised for this playbook to take off in the years to come.

“Our inbound deal flow of seasoned entrepreneurs who are seeing this strategy play out and wanting to bring it to their own local market is growing massively. I'm probably talking to a couple new companies every week at this point who are interested in running this whether or not they already have a company or whether they're public or private who are interested in what bitcoin can do for their balance sheet.”

Chart of the week

Gold hit yet another record high last week, topping out at over $3,100/oz amid furious accumulation by central banks and as U.S. financial institutions repatriate their holdings from overseas custodians.

All the buying pressure is putting an (admittedly small) dent in digital gold’s trading pair with analog gold (or dare we say, physical bitcoin?), as gold recently broke out of its decade-long downtrend when priced in BTC.

Yes, yes, we know — the “breakout” is really a blip, and you’d still be better off if you bought bitcoin instead of gold at practically any point in history except the past year. But a break in trend is still a break, and gold’s rally is notable given mounting concerns over the U.S.’s economic and financially stability.

That said, how long until bitcoin catches up?

Enjoyed the read? You’ll love OPNEXT, the Bitcoin scaling conference hosted by Blockspace at the Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) headquarters, April 11–12 in Tysons, VA. Use code BITDEVS for 10% off a ticket!