Q&A with Andrew Hoppin of ChainLink Capital Management
Co-Founder & CIO
Principal Series:
ChainLink Capital Management is a California-based manager of funds of funds that invest in blockchain technologies and their associated digital assets, including cryptocurrencies.
Modern HNW portfolios that include venture capital exposure now often seek risk-managed venture exposure to the fast growing blockchain technology and digital assets industry, especially as we move into a historically strong part of the industry cycle.
Our flagship “Liquid Venture” fund offers a unique semi-liquid strategy that gives investors broad early-stage venture capital exposure to the industry, including blockchain technology company equity, as well as Web3 and crypto protocols and tokens. Structured as a hedge fund of funds, it offers far better liquidity than a traditional closed-end VC fund, and significantly mitigates risk through extensive diversification, in order to maximize risk-adjusted returns.
The fund has the second-longest track record (>5 years) of all funds of funds in the industry and, since inception, has outperformed Ethereum, the CCi30 cryptocurrency market index, and the S&P 500. The fund has won numerous industry performance awards, including HedgeWeek’s US Digital Assets award for Best Sustained Absolute Performance by any crypto fund (<$25MM category) over the past three years and the CryptoFundResearch award for #1 performing crypto fund of funds for all of 2021.
Many modern HNW portfolios also seek exposure to currency hedging assets, as well as to assets that can generate a consistent market neutral yield. Therefore, the firm co-founded Amphibian, a family of three market-neutral quant funds of funds denominated in USD, Ethereum, and Bitcoin respectively. Each of these portfolios is designed to generate a consistent yield from the underlying asset.
Join us for a private Family Office Insights Webinar featuring Andrew Hoppin, a former space scientist, public servant, and open source govtech entrepreneur, now professionally investing in ventures that build a more egalitarian and democratic planet. Inspired by decentralization and equality of access, he puts his own investment capital and that of his close network to work in furthering the adoption of blockchain technologies as the CIO of ChainLink Capital Management, whose flagship early-stage VC fund was recently awarded for top sustained performance over three years by HedgeWeek.
Also joining will be James Hodges the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Amphibian Capital. He’s a serial entrepreneur, has been involved in crypto since 2013, helped grow a Fintech startup MX.com from 2-28 million users and studied Finance at UC Berkeley and the University of Auckland. He now lives in Costa Rica where he surfs everyday and is building a regenerative/resilient community, while he runs Amphibian Capital.
Prior to co-founding ChainLink Capital, Andrew co-founded and built DKAN, an open source govtech platform acquired by Granicus Inc., which was later acquired by Vista Equity Partners. Earlier, as the first CIO of the New York State Senate, he was selected by GovTech as the New York State Public Sector CIO of the Year and by Information Week as one of the “Government CIO 50.” Andrew serves on the board of Humanity in Action and New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary Fellowship.
September 7, 2023 at 2:15pm-3:15pm EST
RSVP & Confirmation Required
Investors Only Please
Family Office Insights is a voluntary, “opt-in” collaborative peer-to-peer community of single family offices, qualified investors and institutional investors. Join the community here www.familyofficeinsights.com
What are the opportunities in the Blockchain space that ChainLink Capital Management sees and seeks to capture?
We are fortunate to be experienced technology developers and investors at a time when an entirely new technology-based asset class is being newly created. Cryptocurrencies have returned more than any other asset class over the past decade-- averaging >250% per year for Bitcoin alone-- but maximizing risk-adjusted returns is becoming increasingly complicated as the asset class matures. We help investors to allocate a portion of their portfolio to capture the secular growth opportunity inherent in crypto, and the blockchain technologies that power them, in a manner that diversifies and reduces risk to their overall portfolio.
What differentiates ChainLink Capital from other (similar) funds?
We are distinguished by our fund structures, our unique strategies, and our long operating history. We are structured as funds of funds. This approach also mitigates the tail risks that are inherent in investing in the asset class at this early stage, by maximizing diversification. In this way, we believe we can maximize risk-adjusted returns relative to other direct trading or single crypto hedge fund investment strategy We believe this approach can materially improve risk-adjusted returns.
Our flagship fund’s “Liquid Venture” strategy is unique amongst the industry’s hedge funds of funds, offering the potential return profile of early-stage venture, combined with the liquidity optionality of a hedge fund. Our newer market-neutral products include the industry’s first Bitcoin-denominated fund of funds, designed to generate a consistent yield from Bitcoin.
Finally, we have a longer operational track record than all but one other crypto hedge fund of funds. We have demonstrated an ability to navigate the volatile market cycles of crypto, and have long-standing high-trust relationships with many of the most important investment stakeholders in the industry.
What is the opportunity for Investors?
- Our flagship “liquid venture” fund of funds uniquely offers investors a diversified risk-managed way to get exposure to the best early-stage venture capital deals in the rapidly growing blockchain tech industry, without locking capital up for ten years as is typical in a VC fund.
- 2023 has seen material de-risking of the industry due to positive regulatory outcomes, but this because much of our flagship fund of funds is early-stage and pre-market assets, this value-growth is not yet reflected in the fund’s valuation and new early-stage venture deals continue to be struck at low valuations.
- Crypto markets tend to operate on four-year cycles, and we are just entering a historically strong part of the cycle.
- Our market-neutral funds of funds, denominated in Bitcoin and Ethereum, offer investors the opportunity to “stack Bitcoin” and “stack Ethereum” by generating a consistent yields through application of market-neutral trading strategies.
Andrew Hoppin of ChainLink Capital Management
Andrew is an open source govtech entrepreneur, former government CIO and professional investor passionate about ventures that build a more decentralized, egalitarian and democratic planet. Inspired by decentralization and equality of access, he puts his own investment capital and that of his close network to work in furthering the adoption of blockchain technologies as a Partner in ChainLink Capital Management. He also serves as a Global Impact Entrepreneur and Board Member of New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary Fellowship, is on the Board of the US subsidiary of New Zealand’s HealthNow Ltd., and has served on the Boards of good governance NGO Global Integrity and of Humanity in Action. Previously, Andrew founded and built the DKAN open source platform used by governments worldwide to publish data online, before selling the company to leading govtech vendor Granicus. He also co-founded the NASA CoLab program to increase efficiency and transparency by building new partnerships between NASA and external communities. Earlier in his career, he served as an advisor to the New York City Chief Information Officer working on digital transformation projects, and, as the Chief Information Officer of the New York State Senate, managed the enterprise technology portfolio of a 1500 staff institution serving 20 million New Yorkers. There, his team was recognized its innovative Open Senate initiatives, including creating the first government Github repository in the world, and being the first US government to adopt Creative Commons copyright, all while cutting the operating budget of the enterprise to save tax dollars. For this work, Andrew was selected by GovTech as New York State Public Sector CIO of the Year and by Information Week for the “Government CIO 50.”