Report: Pantera Bitcoin Partners launching bitcoin hedge fund

Investment firm Fortress Investment Group (FIG) was one of the first Wall Street companies to take bitcoin seriously, setting aside at least $20 million in funding for bitcoin-related investments in 2013. While FIG has also reported a loss of $3.7 million from their bitcoin business since that time, that doesn’t seem to be diminishing their interest in cryptocurrency.

Yesterday, it was revealed that San Francisco-based hedge fund Pantera Capital had joined with FIG, Ribbit Capital and Benchmark Capital to create a new hedge fund called Pantera Bitcoin Partners. The total investment from the four partner groups is rumored to be $147 million.

According to CNN Money’s Fortune blog, the hedge fund will is said to be focused on long-term appreciation and investment, rather than trading. That focus on long-term investment makes sense given that FIG, Ribbit and Benchmark are also backers of the newly launched “ultra-secure” bitcoin storage service Xapo.

Ribbit Capital’s founder Micky Malka told CNN Money that the goal is to give bitcoin investment “Wall Street credibility,” and noted that the goal is to further bitcoin adoption.

For Bitcoin to become stored value, it needs to be trusted by hundreds of millions of people, not just hundreds of thousands of people. It’s still very high risk, but this is a step toward that goal.”

This small collection of investors isn’t keeping their eggs in one basket, however. In fact, they seem to be driving investment across the bitcoin ecosystem. Pantera is rumored to be a $10 million investor in Bitstamp, while Ribbit is thought to hold large pieces of Coinbase and BTCJam.