Hong Kong’s First Approved Crypto Fund Seeks $100M Target
Venture Smart Asia is a new digital currency brokerage and transaction platform that brings the benefits of blockchain technology to Hong Kong’s financial sector. Venture Smart Asia approved a crypto fund for this year. The fund will be open for investors from all countries but will predominantly cater for investors from China. CEO said the fund would focus on investing in digital currency blockchain based startups as well as acquiring promising businesses with less than one year of operating history.
According to an April 20 Bloomberg report, Arrano Capital, the blockchain arm of Venture Smart Asia, announced the rollout of a new Bitcoin (BTC) fund in Hong Kong. The venture capital firm reported it had met the conditions for a licensed crypto fund by the local Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).
Blockchain technology has the potential to transform financial markets by decentralizing a range of financial activities and allowing for more fair and transparent peer-to-peer payment networks," said Hong Kong’s first, FinTech-focused, VC-backed cryptocurrency fund, which launched on Friday. The fund is being managed by a team at VC firm that was chosen as the money needs of Hong Kong and the region are rising.
We decided to launch this fund to address market demand from professional investors who are increasingly focused on Bitcoin as an alternative store of value. Ultimately for Bitcoin to be widely accepted and for people to trust it, there needs to be regulation.
The aim of this fund is to help grow and empower the community that is working on that regulation. We have created a group of excellent voices from around the world to help push for a regulatory framework to be developed and adopted in the near future. We are looking for potential fund contributors to help build a legal framework. It is also important that the fund has funding commitments, because at the end of the day we are going to need those funds.
We have been involved in raising funds for alternative currency projects for many years and we know how difficult it can be to develop a decentralized crypto-currency with adequate regulation. It is our belief that regulation will result in much easier adoption, but regulation alone does not necessarily solve the problems surrounding trust and economic change. Today, Bitcoin is experiencing an unprecedented burst of development activity from the financial world. We have to help these projects and many more we have yet to see development, by providing capital to help them meet their unmet needs.
