BTG Pactual’s new Bitcoin fund teams up with Gemini for custody

Gemini is providing custody services to the first Bitcoin fund issued by a Brazilian investment bank.

Gemini, the U.S.-based crypto exchange and custodian founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, has announced it will provide custody services for the forthcoming Bitcoin fund from Brazil’s top investment bank, BTG Pactual.

An April 5 announcement indicates Gemini’s subsidiaries, Gemini Custody and Gemini Fund Solutions, will provide customized services for the fund. The post also notes a philosophical alignment between the two firms.

Approved last month, BTG Pactual’s Bitcoin 20 Multi-Market Investment Fund became the first fund launched by a Brazilian investment bank that offers exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) when it went live on Monday.

The fund invests 20% of its assets under management into Bitcoin, with Gemini tasked with securely storing the coins. The fund also allocates 55% of its AUM into treasury bonds, 20% into bank deposit certificates and 5% into repo operations.

All of BTG Pactual’s customers can access the fund, with a minimum investment set at just one Brazilian real (roughly $0.18) and an annual administrative fee of 0.5%.

According to a rough translation, BTG Pactual Asset Management’s Will Landers emphasized the bank’s desire to “democratize investment in Bitcoin” through a product that is “accessible in terms of cost” to investors.

BTG Pactual has been recently extolling the virtues of digital assets, with the bank’s managing partner, Marcelo Flora, revealing the bank had begun compiling an education video series on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency last month.

“In three episodes, we will tell the history of Bitcoin, institutional adoption, how to invest, how the blockchain works, and what stage of technological adoption curve it is in now,” Flora posted to LinkedIn.

BTG Pactual has long been eying innovations in the crypto sector, with the firm launching real estate-backed security tokens in 2019.