Protos Cryptocurrency Asset Management is planning to hold an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to raise capital for a data-driven crypto hedge fund that will invest solely in cryptocurrencies and tokens.
Protos tokens will be a security issued under the exemption from registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Regulation D.
The founders of Protos – Matthew Shaw (pictured), Philipp Kallerhoff, and Thomas Kineshanko – have significant experience in the funds and cryptocurrency space. They have over a decade of combined experience investing in cryptocurrencies, have managed funds of over USD1 billion and Protos will be their third vehicle investing in cryptocurrencies. They have collectively managed funds/proprietary investments of over USD1 billion, have founded and sold three tech startups for proceeds of USD 400 million and one investment bank at a valuation of more than USD250 million.
“We believe that Protos is taking a unique approach,” says Matthew Shaw, co-founder of Protos. “In addition to investing in new digital tokens as well as cryptocurrencies, we are among the first funds building a robust database of digital token and cryptocurrency market data and using advanced technical trading strategies.”
Protos intends to apply institutional asset management rigour to cryptocurrency and digital token investing and inform its strategy by capturing and analysing the necessary market data. The firm intends to also invest in the digital assets of teams that solve difficult problems with highly technical solutions in defensible and scalable markets, building systems to evaluate the underlying data of these teams and their tokens.
The Protos [Cryptocurrency Asset Management] token will aim to 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.
“We are unlocking the second major investing wave in cryptocurrency and once data on the market exists, we anticipate seeing an explosion in trading strategies similar to that experienced in stock trading,” says Philipp Kallerhoff, co-founder of Protos. “We are driving this second wave with the goal of benefiting our token holders through our crypto trading strategies.”
Protos will invest in the digital assets of the protocols it believes will be the foundational infrastructure and biggest applications in the third major computing revolution.
“The first revolution was the PC, the second was the Internet, and we feel the third is now distributed applications based on Bitcoin-like cryptographic technology,” says Thomas Kineshanko, co-founder of Protos. “To invest in the first two computing revolutions you’re required to buy shares in companies, but to invest in the blockchain revolution, you have to purchase tokens.”
The Protos token, unlike traditional hedge fund and venture capital limited partnership investments, has no lock-up (other than the 12-month holding period for Regulation D purchasers) and will provide liquidity once traded on exchanges. The token’s presale is scheduled for 25 September, 2017 and the public ICO is expected to commence on 17 October, 2017.
The offering is being managed by Argon Investment Management LLC, a unit of the Argon Group, a Los Angeles-based investment bank specialising in the field of cryptocurrencies and the ICO market, under the Regulation D Section 506(c) exemption from registration promulgated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
