Pantera Capital, one of the largest cryptocurrency hedge funds, made a big comeback in April, according to documents reviewed by Business Insider.
The firm’s Digital Asset Fund gained 46.2% in April, riding a bullish surge across the market for digital currencies. That’s a big turn around for the fund, which was down 45.7% in March, according to documents.
In March, the crypto market shed almost 50% of its value. It started to picked up steam near mid-April around Tax Day in the US.
Pantera Capital, which manages about $1 billion, said in an investor letter dated April 11 that the deadline for filing taxes in the US was behind’s March selling.
“I could imagine that a portion of the selling pressure on the market in general has been unintended tax positions,” the letter said.
Notably, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee predicted in a note to clients at the beginning of April that selling pressure would alleviate after Tax Day. Since April 17, bitcoin has picked up approximately $1,500 per coin.
Still, Pantera was outshined by at least two passive index funds. Bitwise HOLD 10 Private Index Fund was up 52.9% in April, after fees, according to person familiar with the matter. And Hehmeyer Trading’s Cryptocurrency Index Fund ended April up 51.7%, according to the company.
To be sure, many hedge funds have outperformed passive funds year-to-date, according to Joe DiPasquale, the founder of BitBull Capital, a cryptocurrency fund of funds.
“BitBull’s diligence on crypto funds shows that the many well-run funds were about 15% higher than HOLD 10 through April 2018,” DiPasquale said in a statement. “While most did not outperform in bull months like April, they did in bear months like January and March, as well as in bull years like 2017 vs backtest of indexes.”
As for Pantera’s Digital Asset Fund, it is down 34% since the beginning of the year, which is slightly worse than bitcoin’s performance. The cryptocurrency is down 30% year-to-date, according to Market Insider data.
Elsewhere at Pantera, its ICO fund was up a whopping 60% in April. And its Long-Term ICO fund gained 5% in April.
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