Brevan Howard’s crypto hedge fund achieved a significant gain of around 20% in the first half of this year, amid increased interest from institutional investors in the burgeoning asset class, according to a report by MarketWatch.

The report cites unnamed sources familiar with the mater as confirming that assets at Brevan Howard Digital, which has a 60-strong team led by CEO Gautam Sharma, have now reached $2.3bn.

Brevan Howard's double-digit H1 gain comes on the back of an impressive 44% return in 2023.

The fund’s recent success comes as the cryptocurrency market has surged by some $700bn since January, fueled partly by the US Securities and Exchange Commission's approval of the first spot bitcoin ETF launches for several asset managers, including BlackRock and Fidelity.

London-based crypto hedge funds are among the primary beneficiaries of the recent rally in digital assets, with Fasanara Digital, the digital asset division of $4bn asset manager Fasanara Capital, seeing a 15% increase by the end of May, and Nickel Digital Asset Management, a crypto hedge fund founded by former Goldman Sachs executive director Anatoly Crachilov, recording a 14% gain by the end of April.