Asset management firm Stone Ridge has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its open-end mutual fund to invest in bitcoin. “This is a big deal. Stone Ridge filing opens the door for every mutual fund to add bitcoin,” said a fellow asset manager.

Stone Ridge Wants Its Mutual Fund to Invest in Bitcoin

Stone Ridge Trust filed Form N-1A with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week. The filing, which is expected to become effective on April 26, relates to the Stone Ridge Diversified Alternatives Fund.

The fund “seeks to generate total returns from diverse investment strategies that we believe have the potential for attractive returns and are diversifying from stocks and bonds,” the filing details. “These strategies include reinsurance, market risk transfer, style premium investing, alternative lending, single-family real estate, healthcare royalties, and bitcoin.”

For the bitcoin investment strategy, the filing explains:

[The fund] seeks to generate returns by gaining exposure to the price of bitcoin by selling put options on bitcoin futures contracts. This strategy may also invest in pooled investment vehicles, such as registered or private funds, that themselves invest in bitcoin.

Anthony Scaramucci, founder of another asset management firm Skybridge Capital, which itself has about half a billion dollars worth of bitcoin in its bitcoin fund, commented on the filing last week. “Important development in bitcoin. Stone Ridge filed with the SEC to become the first open-ended mutual fund to buy bitcoin,” he wrote. Scaramucci also sees heavy demand for bitcoin from his clients and expects the BTC price to reach $100K by year-end.

Noting that “Stone Ridge will be able to start buying bitcoin on April 26 (when their prospectus goes effective),” he opined:

This is a big deal. Stone Ridge filing opens the door for every mutual fund to add bitcoin (if they want to).

Stone Ridge founder Ross Stevens also founded the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), a bitcoin-only financial services firm. Early this month, the firm filed for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) with the SEC. Stevens recently said that he sees “a wall of money” coming into the asset class. NYDIG already has over $6 billion in bitcoin and the firm expects to have over $25 billion in cryptocurrency by the end of the year.