Crypto Funds 101: Fund Classification and Compliance Operations (Part 2)
Author: Author: Yixuan Huang, BD Director; Phil Yang, Head of BD
In Part I of the Crypto Funds 101 article, we discussed a high-level overview of crypto funds, introducing typical types of crypto funds in today’s increasingly regulated crypto market by investment strategy, trading frequency and source of capital.
Refer to Part I at: https://press.1token.tech/2022/05/31/crypto-funds-101-fund-classification-and-compliance-operations/
In Part II, we will start by presenting three case studies of regulated crypto funds, and discuss the key points related to various crypto funds’ management and operations for fund managers and third-party service providers.
Regulated Crypto Fund Case Study
In this section, we will present three representative cases of regulated crypto funds: one Cayman hedge fund, one Hong Kong hedge fund, and one U.S. regulated public fund.
AnB is a regulated crypto SPC registered in the Cayman Islands. Currently, the SPC has two running funds:
a) One multi-strategy fund that includes all of the firm’s strategies and generates greater returns by undertaking higher volatility and greater market exposure
b) One delta-neutral fund that contains only delta-neutral strategies. This fund generates steady returns by keeping minimal volatility and market exposure.
The SPC manages a total AUM of USD $50 million, with allocation split among various investments in cryptocurrencies and DeFi. In combination, the SPC aims to gain alpha from the crypto market’s volatility and market inefficiencies. Strategies include directional algorithmic trading, arbitrage, yield farming, etc. Subscription and Redemption are available each month with a minimum investment of $100k. Fund revenue includes an annual management fee of 2.4% and performance fee of 20% upon reaching high watermark. Fund expenses include costs of strategy development, trading, risk management, operation, legal and audit related fees and human overhead.
Huobi Asset Management (Huobi AM)
Huobi AM is a regulated asset management firm registered in Hong Kong, holding both Type 4 (Advising on Securities) and Type 9 (Asset Management) licenses issued by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (the “SFC”).
Huobi AM runs multiple SFC regulated funds, including two BTC and ETH index funds, and one actively managed multi-strategy fund. These funds are only open to subscriptions from SFC approved professional investors.
Similar to AnB, Huobi AM also adopts an SPC structure where its assets (both traditional and crypto) are held by a third party custodian that complies to SFC regulations. Having established trading activities with a large number of exchanges and counterparties, Huobi AM devotes heavily into IT and human resources to optimize investment research, internal and external operational analysis, trading data collection and aggregation, and risk management. The company also hires multiple external crypto fund administrators to generate and deliver crypto buy-side compliance for funds (like fund valuation) on a regular basis.
ProShares is a regulated public fund registered in the U.S. It runs BITO Fund, the first regulated ETF in the U.S. This fund does not directly hold BTC spot (currently not permitted in the US), but indirectly tracks BTC movements by holding BTC futures. Like traditional public funds, BITO shares can be traded in the secondary market. In BITO’s fund operation, the firm hires third parties including external crypto fund administrators, accounting agent for buy-side crypto funds, custodian, transfer agent, and distributor. [2] Compared to private funds, regulated public funds are available to all public investors, and thus face stricter regulations, more frequent disclosure requirements (e. g. daily NAV), and as a result, higher operational overhead costs.
How to Run a Regulated Crypto Fund
In general, buy-side firms refer to the various models of funds and asset managements. Two key aspects of running any crypto buy-side firm can be categorized into a) portfolio management and b) operational and compliance management. In most cases, crypto buy-side portfolio management is handled by a team of investment professionals who focus on determining asset allocation, and the firm’s overall strategy. In some cases, external trading teams can be outsourced to take care of part of the investment decisions. Operational and compliance management, on the other hand, is handled by a collaborative effort involving both internal teams and external service providers like crypto fund administrators and auditors, etc.
Below is a breakdown of key workstreams for running a crypto buy-side firm from the perspectives of funds’ internal team and external third-party service providers.
Workflow for Fund Management Internal Team
1. Obtaining a license
Depending on the location and local regulatory requirements, compliance thresholds can vary for issuance of fund operating licenses. Some regions present a very high compliance threshold–for example, in Hong Kong, firms must apply to the SFC for virtual asset management license and fund distribution license for crypto asset management and distribution [3]. However, in offshore areas such as the Cayman Islands and BVI, the compliance threshold for license is much lower, and hence become popular choices for crypto funds. License applications are usually handled by professional crypto fund administrations and law firms.
2. Determining your fund statement
Like any traditional fund, a crypto fund registration, as required under regulations, must provide a detailed statement including investment scope, trading strategies, opening frequency, management fees and performance fees and relevant third parties (custody, administration …) etc.
3. Fundraising
Mainstream crypto funds are generally USD-denominated (fund NAV is calculated in USD). For any USD- denominated crypto fund, investors can subscribe into the fund using USD or stable coins such as USDT/USDC. In other cases, crypto funds may also be denominated in cryptocurrency with good liquidity, such as BTC and ETH. Usually, buy-side crypto fund accountings are done in single denomination, either in USD or the denominated cryptocurrency. However, for FoFs / MoMs that invest into multiple crypto funds via managed accounts, the portfolio can be accounted in mixed denominations, say both USD and BTC. For regulated funds, external LP’s funds will be secured and kept by a third party custodian. In many cases, crypto exchanges can provide custody services directly. In recent years, separate professional custodians emerged as well especially for DeFi trading purpose).
4. Managing Daily Operations
Daily operations of a fund include but not limited to: investor subscription and redemption (various frequencies), trading execution of strategy, risk management of positions and collaterals, calculation of income and expenses, crypto compliance reporting, etc.
a) Investor subscription and redemption management: main workstreams include recording and calculating each investor subscription, redemption and settlement for single or mixed denomination funds, as well as the corresponding fund NAV adjustment.
b) Trading execution: main workstreams include setting pre-trade risk thresholds, determining trading strategies and keeping records of all trading activities. For trade execution, to minimize the overall cost and reflect the true market price, institutions often adopt algo trading strategies like TWAP or VWAP, trading by crypto over-the-counter, or develop crypto in-house investing business unit through quantitative strategies..
c) Risk management: main workstreams include determining key risk metrics and closely monitoring and revising each. Common risk control metrics include NAV, drawdown, exposure, LTV / liquidation alerts, stress test, VAR, etc. Different trading strategies put different focus on specific risk parameters. For instance, active strategy requires close monitoring of drawdowns, whereas risk-neutral strategy requires fund exposure to be kept around 0. For lending fixed yield strategy, ratios like LTV (Loan to Value) are applied to monitor collateral value during price fluctuation. For DeFi fixed yield strategy, it is crucial to obtain real-time contract information to monitor risks accordingly.
d) Calculations of income and expenses: main workstreams include calculating expenses (accrual, non-accrual, and amortized), and income for investors and managers including but not limited to dividends and profit share, management fees, and performance fees (per individual high-water mark). These income and expenses are calculated and reported to investors by third party fund admins, and internal fund operation team is mainly responsible for data verification.
e) Compliance reporting: crypto funds are required to reveal fund performance and submit risk reports regularly. Common metrics include fund valuation, NAV, drawdown, volatility, etc. In addition, funds are required to provide detailed operation data such as account deposit and withdrawal, transaction and trade history etc. for audit trail and reconciliation.
5. Fund Termination:
Main workstreams include final settlement of trading and custody accounts, and clearing of both capital and investors’ shares.
Workflow for Third Party Service Providers (e. g. Fund Administration, Custodian, and Audit Firms)
1. Confirming service scope
Typically, common services provided include investor management, account management, fund accounting, administrative compliance management, fee calculation, and service of crypto audit systems etc.
2. Investor management
Main workstreams include investors’ KYC management, fund subscription and redemption, and investor shares management.
3. Trade reconciliation
Main workstreams include keeping track of balance snapshots, deposit and withdraw records, transaction and transfer records, and all trading records for all accounts under various funds, as well as performing account & fund level trade reconciliation on a daily / weekly / monthly basis.
4. Calculation of fund-related expenses
Main workstreams include calculating management fee, performance fee, operating expenses, etc.
5. Reporting
Main workstreams include preparing fund performance report for investors with fund NAV information, normally on a monthly basis. Others include preparing and delivering quarterly, semi-annual, and annual income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements.
In addition to understanding the key workstreams for funds’ internal team and external third-party service providers, it is also important to understand the key responsibilities of various internal and external roles.
Key Responsibilities for Internal Team
Typically, the internal team of a crypto buy-side firm consists of roles like portfolio manager, trader, risk controller, operation and compliance officer. Based on unified data source and data pipeline criteria, (e. g. get market feed via APIs, setting risk factors calculation rule), the internal team work together under both internal and external regulations.
Portfolio manager
Main responsibilities include multi-dimensional data tracking and data analysis of the fund. The scope of data tracking and analysis covers all counterparties related to the fund, all instruments (including centralized and decentralized) individual or combined positions, PnL, KPI, and so on. Crypto buy-side portfolio managers are also responsible for generating customized reports externally for investors, or internally for the management board, which would require additional cleaning and transformation of raw data.
Trader
Main responsibilities include efficient and stable order executions and fund transfers. The scope of such includes monitoring market conditions, trading processes (e.g., TWAP algorithmic mandate execution), and relevant risk metrics.
Risk Controller
Main responsibilities include setting risk control rules, monitoring and reporting risk in real-time. The scope of such includes market-level, fund-level, account-level, and instrument-level monitoring, alert checking and record keeping.
Compliance Officer
Main responsibilities include information bookkeeping and disclosure according to internal and external regulations. The scope of such includes trading approval, report preparation, periodic disclosure, regulatory data submission, etc.
Operation Officer
Main responsibilities include data integration and coordination between internal team and external service providers (normally with fund admins). The scope of such includes fund subscription and redemption, NAV calculation, expense management, fund valuation, reconciliation, historical data tracking, and data analysis.
Key Responsibilities for Third-Party Service Providers
Fund admins
Main responsibilities include provision of accurate and timely ((weekly or even daily) NAV calculation. Like traditional funds, crypto funds may see variances in the accrual of performance fees, based on factors such as investor category, fund category, investment amount, holding time, fund performance, etc. With increasing number of investors or frequency of subscriptions and redemptions, manual calculation of NAV would become extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming. Strong IT infrastructures that standardize and facilitate data processing and calculation can be key in improving efficiency and differentiating the quality and speed of service delivery for crypto fund administrators.
Auditors
Main responsibilities include reconciling the changes in account balances to 100% matching the net movement of deposits and withdrawals, transfers, funding and trading activities. Thus, it is necessary for crypto audit systems to support reconciliation for all types of crypto assets (spot, derivatives, DeFi, etc.), and be familiar with all ‘rabbit holes’ regarding data collection. For example, in many cases, incompletion or errors in transaction history can be caused by exchanges not being able to provide historical balance snapshots, not having exact instrument lists to generate trading history, or keeping special fees like maker rebate separately. An efficient solution to such common pain points is to streamline reconciliation with an IT system, taking regular balance snapshots, collecting all asset movement data and conducting automatic reconciliation in the crypto reconciliation system.
Custodians
Main responsibilities include authorizing transfers to be restricted to authorized addresses and accounts. Pre-transfer control (monitor and alert) and approval are necessary to ensure investors’ asset security.
Market Opportunity for Third-Party Service Providers
From 1Token’s many prospective clients, feedbacks are showing that there is a growing need for crypto-specific reporting services:
Higher reporting frequency
Most fund admins can only provide NAV by manual process, which does not satisfy crypto funds and investors in this 7*24 volatile market. To be able to generate daily /weekly, crypto fund administrators / auditing firms require an IT system for operational scalability.
Accounting reconciliation for complex trading strategy
Quant trading, especially high-frequency trading, can generate thousands and tens of thousands spots and derivative orders per day, causing a big challenge for fund admins to ensure correct reconciliation output. Crypto fund administrators / auditing firms require a robust IT system, like a crypto accounting infrastructure, that perfectly addressed such complexity.
Diversified crypto asset class
Crypto funds can contain various types of assets, including spots, derivatives, DeFi, loans etc. To maximize well-roundedness, crypto fund admins and auditing firms need a comprehensive portfolio management software that supports and evolves quickly with all crypto assets.
Data security
For institutional clients, it is crucial that vendors (crypto fund administrators / auditing firms) comply to data security and confidentiality, which are commonly ensured by 1) technical solution like on-premises local deployment and 2) process audit like SOC 2 certification.
1Token’s One-Station Financial Software for Crypto Institutions
1Token is the all-in-one financial software for crypto institutions, supporting 20+ Blockchains, 100+ Defi protocols, and 80+ CeFi & traditional trading venues.
Currently, 1Token software supports all crypto assets in CeFi and DeFi, including spots, futures, options, fixed / variable income products, SAFT, POW/POS mining, staking/yield farming, NFT etc., as well as traditional assets such as stocks / FX / ETFs etc.
1Token’s institutional clients spread across all verticals of crypto-finance, including buy-side institutions in asset management, fund / FoF / MoM, foundation / exchange treasury, fund admin, audit etc., and sell-side institutions in lending, margin trading, prime brokerage, retail brokerage, spot OTC, derivative OTC etc.
For each specific business vertical, 1Token provides an end-to-end solution that supports front-to-back office technology in sales & trading, OEMS, Crypto PMS, Crypto RMS, pricing / product structuring, accounting, clearing & settlement, etc., and multi-department usage for sales / trading / risk / operation / finance teams all at once.
Today, 1Token serves 40+ large global institutions, with top profiles like Algorand Foundation, Amber Group, Animoca Brands, FBG Capital, Matrixport, Metalpha, Pintu, Zipmex, and 4 of the Top 7 CMC exchanges etc., which in total exceed $20+ bn asset managed.
For buy-side institutions, the system provides comprehensive end-to-end support across front-to-back office operations, including
· Investor management: LP subscription / redemption and NAV reporting; Settlement of complex fund structures (feeder-master, structured funds etc.) and transfer
· Portfolio management / risk management: 360° view of real-time balance sheet and exposure of all assets; Customizable pre-trade/ on-trade/ post-trade risk & collateral management, margin call & liquidation; Portfolio mark to market return, PnL and sensitivity analysis
· Trading: Single/multiple account order execution; Manual / algo trade execution on aggregated CeFi liquidity (exchanges, OTCs, custodies / banks, FX…)
· Accounting / reporting admin: Automatic reconciliation of all asset and cash flow movements (trades / transactions / transfer); Customizable generation & delivery of crypto auditing, tax, and compliance reports (internal & external)
The system is institutional operation oriented, supporting on-premise local deployment and exchange-grade data security, various roles and permissions for departments/user groups, as well as 24/7 IT support, offsite data backup and business continuity plan.
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