
Beating Bitcoin at Scale with Directional Crypto Strategies | Sam Gaer of Monarq Asset Management
Other People's Money with Max WietheShow Notes
This episode is brought to you by VanEck. Learn more about the VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF: http://vaneck.com/REMXMax
Sam Gaer, CIO of Directional Strategies at Monarq Asset Management, joins Other People’s Money to discuss how he uses quantitative directional strategies to trade crypto assets and produce an institutional quality return stream that has outperformed bitcoin at scale. He explains how his experience as a market maker, executive, and self-taught electronic exchange technologist driving some of the most important technological advances in finance led him to “burn the boats,” leave tradfi, and go all in on building institutional crypto strategies with Monarq. He also discusses how institutional appetite for crypto hedge fund strategies is growing with increased regulatory clarity, greater availability of institutional level funds, and evolving market opportunities in crypto-native and crypto-linked tradfi assets.
Follow Sam Gaer on X: https://x.com/samg67
Follow Monarq on X: https://x.com/monarq_mgmt
Follow VanEck on X: https://x.com/vaneck_us
Follow Max on X: https://x.com/maxwiethe
Follow Other People’s Money on:
Apple Podcast https://bit.ly/4e7QJ1M
Spotify https://bit.ly/3Yhaazi
YouTube https://bit.ly/3C63VXR
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:43 Q4 Crypto Volatility
06:21 A Disappointing Year for Crypto Bulls
10:29 Taking Advantage of Extreme Volatility
12:50 Triple Barrier Risk Management
15:43 $REMX
16:26 Responsible Leverage
17:17 Is the 4-Year Cycle Over
21:55 Early Days Pit Trading
24:16 Building Electronic Exchange Technology
26:38 CEO of NYMEX Europe and NYMEX IPO
27:24 Move to FINRA
28:43 Building and Selling a Volatility Hedge Fund
29:15 Burn the Boats
32:14 Joining Monarq
37:14 Differences Between Crypto Fund Managers and TradFi
39:17 Institutional Adoption of Crypto Hedge Funds
44:27 Can Crypto Strategies Scale to Meet the Demand?
47:19 The Crypto TradFi Collision
49:57 The Difference Between Institutional and Non-institutional Quality Crypto Funds
54:13 Hyper Liquid and Other Market Improvements in Crypto
59:26 Will TradFi Take Over Crypto?
01:01:31 Digital Asset Treasuries
01:08:46 The Next Stage for Monarq
More from Other People's Money with Max Wiethe
This episode is brought to you by Sarmaya Partners. Learn more about Sarmaya’s LENS ETF, their full data and comparison, including performance here: https://sarmayaetf.com/
This episode is brought to you by Sarmaya Partners. Learn more about Sarmaya’s LENS ETF, their full data and comparison, including performance here: https://sarmayaetf.com/
James Elbaor, Founder and Portfolio Manager at Marlton LLC joins OPM to discuss why the private credit boom is officially over. Elbaor explains how artificial intelligence is threatening the SaaS businesses that make up over half a trillion dollars of private credit exposure, while also detailing how liquidity gates are currently trapping investors in massive interval funds like BCRED. The discussion concludes by exploring lucrative upcoming merger opportunities in the public BDC space and analyzing why asset managers utilizing permanent capital vehicles are being rewarded with premium market multiples.
Eric Wallerstein, Chief Macro Strategist at Clocktower Group, joins OPM to discuss why he sees substantial risk that the Fed is making a policy mistake by hiking into a supply shock that could cause a 2022 style bear market. He also explores the global coordination of rate hikes and why he believes the participation of lower growth economies like Canada indicate that this is a reaction to higher energy prices and not a substantially higher global neutral rate.
Try model portfolios available on Plutus and get a 45-day fee waiver when you signup with code OPM45: https://runplutus.com/mm-opm/login