The highly regulated world of hedge funds gets in on the crypto currency mania sweeping the globe

• The crypto currency market has exploded in value this year. Crypto currencies, which rose to fame with Bitcoin, have captured investors’ imagination this year with an estimated 800 coins now on the market with a combined market cap of $166 billion.

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In the past few weeks, coin offerings have heated up with Burger King launching its own crypto currency and even Paris Hilton lending her face to the newest offering, “Lydian Coin,” from a company called Gravity4, a development the Financial Times has taken full advantage of, speculating in an article on the topic:

“If the whitepaper is to be believed, the whole idea here is that people will pay for Lydian tokens and use them to buy advertising campaigns from LydianCoin, which in turn licences its technology, products and services from Gravity4. The money won’t be used for anything. It will just sit there, covering the enormous balance sheet liability this ICO will create for LydianCoin.”

“There’s also a disclosure that Gravity4 “does not have significant experience” with blockchain projects, which is probably why Paris Hilton is promoting the scheme.”

Crypto Currency Mania: Hedge Fund Boom

Professional investors are rushing to capitalize in on the crypto currency boom. A wave of hedge funds focused on currencies such as bitcoin have hit the market this year, offering investors access to various strategies designed to generate profit in the volatile digital markets.

According to fintech analytics firm Autonomous NEXT, there are now 55 cryptocurrency hedge funds in existence (68 including 13 reader submitted entries). On top of these new investment entities, NEXT estimates $1.8 billion and counting has been raised through Initial Coin Offerings so far this year.

Protos Cryptocurrency Asset Management, one of the first data-driven hedge fund managers in the cryptocurrency and digital token space, is looking to capitalize on the ICO boom by offering its own “Protos tokens.”

These tokens will reportedly “accrue value based on the investment returns that Protos earns through its investments in cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ether and Litecoin, as well as existing and new blockchain-based digital tokens.” The Protos ICO presale is scheduled for September 25, 2017 and the public ICO is expected to start on October 17, 2017.