BlockchainCom Launches Asset Management Service for Institutional Investors, HNIs, Family Offices

BlockchainCom launched an asset management service, BCAM, on Wednesday. The new business arm has been created in partnership with Altis Partners, an investment management company with a focus on futures portfolios. 

The new asset management brand will target “institutional investors, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals,” said a media report. 

One of the products that BCAM plans to offer is tracking the “price of bitcoin versus the dollar.”

As per the arrangement, Altis Partners will leverage its strengths in futures investment management, while BlockchainCom will bring the rest of the resources for the new venture. It will also provide “algorithm-based risk-managed exposure” to reduce the volatility of investing in bitcoin. 

Terming the asset management service “a big opportunity,” Charles McGarraugh, Chief Strategy Officer at BlockchainCom, said the company is trying to focus on institutional business through BCAM. 

By acquiring Singapore-based Altonomy’s OTC trading and executions business last month, BlockchainCom has already added thousands of institutional clients. 

Blockchain.com’s Valuation Soars to $14 Billion

Last week, the firm raised a new round of funding at a valuation of $14 billion, more than double from $5.2 billion in March 2021 when it received another injection of $300 million.  

The new round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with major participation from Baillie Gifford & Co, a Bloomberg report said. The earlier round in March was led by Lightspeed and VY Capital.

However, neither BlockchainCom nor the investors confirmed the news publicly.

$1 Trillion in Transaction and IPO Plans

After ten years of its inception last year, BlockchainCom revealed that it had crossed the milestone of $1 trillion in transactions. 

“These numbers don’t reflect what’s bought and sold on our exchange, but rather real usage of crypto: instantly sending value across the world as easily as sending an email,” Blockchain CFO Macrina Kgil said in an institutional blog on Medium. 

In a significant announcement, Kgil revealed that the company was planning an IPO in line with Coinbase and Robinhood. “An IPO is possibly 18-months or more away,” the exec said.

In December last year, BlockchainCom announced plans to launch an NFT marketplace. 

“We want to make accessing the NFT market as easy as accessing the crypto market. With the Blockchain.com NFT marketplace (in beta), you’ll be able to browse, buy, sell, and securely store NFTs without ever leaving your BlockchainCom Wallet,” it said.