According to a report on FundView, the German private bank Hauck & Aufhäuser announced its first crypto fund, the HAIC Digital Asset Fund I. The initiative, which will be launched on January 1, 2021, is a collaboration with Berlin fintech Kapilendo and will target institutional and quasi-institutional investors who want to invest in a portfolio of crypto assets (including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Stellar (XLM)). The fund’s minimum investment is 200,000 Euros, with no limit on the subscription period, and total ongoing fees amounting to 2.05% of the fund volume. Kapilendo will act as the crypto depository while Hauck & Aufhäuser is responsible for the fund management.
Despite being great news for the Crypto industry, many commentators have not stressed enough that is just another alternative investment fund that invests in crypto. Therefore, retail investors – who, by definition, are not high-net-worth individuals nor are financial institutions nor professional investors – cannot invest (yet) in such financial instruments with cryptos as underlying assets. This barrier is due to the European and American supervisory authorities’ continued refusal to approve a Crypto exchange-traded fund (i.e. a specific kind of crypto investment fund which can be commercialised to retail investors). Since retail customers are not allowed to buy this kind of financial instruments, until then, it is unlikely that there will be anything like the so-called “mass adoption”.
Nevertheless, the interesting aspect is that the promoter is a historical German bank that, also to rebranding and relaunching itself, is betting on setting up an investment fund (reserved for institutional investors) with crypto as underlying. Even though it was not the first European attempt of this kind, this is the first time a credit institution has started the set-up of such a commercial initiative directly. Perhaps, this is another step towards the “financial institution adoption”: more and more financial vehicles are becoming available for institutional investors to enter the crypto market and, probably, this entrance is just what is needed for a following real mass adoption. In the end, the traditional financial institutions, so ostracised by the crypto community, might be the gateway that was missing for the great public’s general adoption.
