Key Takeaways
- • Strix Leviathan, a quantitative crypto hedge fund founded in 2018 that manages $50 million in assets, has hired Matthew McBrady, former chief investment officer of BlackRock's $1.5 billion multi-strategy hedge fund, as strategy head.
- • McBrady will broaden the firm's strategy suite, including market-neutral strategies complementing the flagship Nest Fund and expansion of the DeFi-focused Aurora Fund.
- • The hire coincides with the firm finishing a rebuild of its trading infrastructure to ingest a broader array of data.
- • McBrady, who joined BlackRock in 2014 to overhaul the investment process and operating structure of its multi-strategy fund, cites crypto market inefficiencies following the Terra and Celsius collapses as the core opportunity.
Summary
Strix Leviathan, a quantitative crypto hedge fund, is bringing on Matthew McBrady as strategy head to broaden its suite of strategies and capture market opportunities, according to Blockworks. McBrady previously served as chief investment officer of a BlackRock multi-strategy hedge fund with $1.5 billion in assets, a role he held for nearly three years after BlackRock hired him in 2014 to overhaul the fund's investment process and operating structure. Earlier, he was head of investment strategy and risk management at Silver Creek Capital Management and a vice president at Bain Capital's North American private equity group, and he began his career as an international economist with Janet Yellen on President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors.
Strix Leviathan CEO Sadie Raney said in a statement that McBrady's experience building and running alternative investment strategies for demanding limited partners is "simply unparalleled." McBrady began monitoring crypto in 2017, was introduced to Raney through a former colleague, and had served as an adviser to the firm's investment committee before joining full-time.
The firm, founded in 2018, serves institutions, fund of funds, single family offices, and high-net-worth individuals, and currently manages $50 million in assets. Its flagship Nest Fund seeks risk-adjusted returns on a buy-and-hold basket of digital assets using statistical models. McBrady said the Nest Fund has captured 70% of the upside and 30% of the downside, and that its risk management signals can be repurposed into alpha-seeking signals. Research is focused on market-neutral strategies to complement the Nest Fund, and McBrady has been tasked with strengthening the Aurora Fund, which pursues market-neutral yield through low-risk arbitrage and liquidity provision on DeFi platforms.
McBrady framed the current market, marked by the crypto winter and the collapse of Terra's algorithmic stablecoin earlier in the year followed by the bankruptcies of platforms such as Celsius, as a period of heightened inefficiency. He told Blockworks that crypto is a sector that is "patently inefficient" yet tradable in large quantities, and that such conditions are a source of opportunity for hedge funds.
Strix Leviathan CEO Sadie Raney said in a statement that McBrady's experience building and running alternative investment strategies for demanding limited partners is "simply unparalleled." McBrady began monitoring crypto in 2017, was introduced to Raney through a former colleague, and had served as an adviser to the firm's investment committee before joining full-time.
The firm, founded in 2018, serves institutions, fund of funds, single family offices, and high-net-worth individuals, and currently manages $50 million in assets. Its flagship Nest Fund seeks risk-adjusted returns on a buy-and-hold basket of digital assets using statistical models. McBrady said the Nest Fund has captured 70% of the upside and 30% of the downside, and that its risk management signals can be repurposed into alpha-seeking signals. Research is focused on market-neutral strategies to complement the Nest Fund, and McBrady has been tasked with strengthening the Aurora Fund, which pursues market-neutral yield through low-risk arbitrage and liquidity provision on DeFi platforms.
McBrady framed the current market, marked by the crypto winter and the collapse of Terra's algorithmic stablecoin earlier in the year followed by the bankruptcies of platforms such as Celsius, as a period of heightened inefficiency. He told Blockworks that crypto is a sector that is "patently inefficient" yet tradable in large quantities, and that such conditions are a source of opportunity for hedge funds.
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