A Wall Street veteran with over 14 years of experience has launched a new venture fund dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain startups, offering further prove that smart money investors are pivoting to the emerging globe of digital assets.

On Monday, onetime Citi executive Matt Zhang introduced Hivemind Capital Partners, a $one.5 billion multi-strategy fund designed to bootstrap promising crypto plays and "institutionalize crypto investing." The fund will prioritize projects focused on building crypto infrastructure, virtual worlds and programmable coin, and will also trade digital assets as function of its underlying strategy.

Hivemind'due south starting time technology partner is Algorand, a proof-of-stake protocol that is increasingly focused on creating infrastructure for the global fiscal industry. Algorand is a top-20 blockchain project, with its native ALGO token valued at $xi.2 billion in total marketplace capitalization, according to Coingecko.

Zhang described blockchain technology as a "paradigm shift" and said his firm volition provide crypto entrepreneurs with infrastructure support that is not currently bachelor within traditional asset management models. Nonetheless, the company has withal to announce whatsoever major funding.

Venture capital has flooded the cryptocurrency industry this year, with major funds allocating billions of dollars towards promising startups. Successive funding rounds have given nascency to at least a dozen crypto unicorns, a term used to describe startups with a valuation of $1 billion or more than.

Zhang's Hivemind is one of a pocket-sized handful of multi-billion-dollar crypto funds. Equally Cointelegraph reported, Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz launched a $ii.ii billion crypto fund in June, which was the largest ever at the time. In Nov, crypto investment firm Paradigm revealed a $2.5 billion portfolio dedicated to crypto companies.