Founder of Brevan Howard hedge fund Alan Howard has started offering cryptocurrency services to businesses and institutions through his company, Elwood.
Following this investment, U.K.-based Elwood has now directly invested 1.5% of its main fund in crypto.
The billionaire is now one of the highest-ranking fund managers to invest heavily in crypto. Experts say this sets him apart from other traditional fund managers many of who do not support and invest massively in crypto.
Some UK fund managers have differed with the Financial Conduct Authority for banning the sale of crypto-related derivatives and its anti-crypto approach. It is also encouraging news of backing crypto investment despite earlier reports that UK banks were blocking payments to cryptocurrency exchanges.
The additional investment through Elwood comes after Howard, last week, led a Series B funding round for a crypto-custody known as Copper.co. Copper raised $25 million. The investment into Copper happened a day after he announced investing $4 million in an Asian crypto trading app Kikitrade. Howard is also invested in CoinShares and Canadian crypto lending firm Ledn.
Through Elwood, Howard is now offering crypto services to crypto exchanges, neobanks, fintechs, asset managers, and payment services. These types of businesses can rely on the company for single-API market access and end-to-end trading services according to the company website.
Although it previously offered asset management, Elwood has now invested in cloud technology and software to facilitate these crypto business services.
According to the company, the platform will allow these businesses to access “thousands of crypto assets across over 30 crypto exchanges.”
