Crypto Startup Abra Enters Institutional Asset Management Business

The company is looking to hire a head of trading strategies who would focus on building out quantitative crypto trading models

article-image

Source: Shutterstock

share

key takeaways

  • The company has been informally offering trading strategies to institutional clients — the hire is an effort to solidify that business
  • Abra’s CEO hinted that the company’s first institutional funds could be in the works

Abra is getting into the institutional crypto asset management business.

The crypto wealth manager is looking to hire its first head of trading strategies, who would be tasked with building out a team and the trading infrastructure to invest in a variety of different strategies.

Abra on a one-off basis has already been offering customized trading strategies to institutional clients, CEO Bill Barhydt told Blockworks. The thinking behind the new position is to formalize and expand that pipeline — with a focus on investments that drive yield enhancements.

Strategies in the mix include basis trades and arbitrage opportunities, and the idea is to build on yield enhancement opportunities that Abra has already developed on the credit side of the business. 

Ben Liams, the company’s vice president of trading and credit markets, said ideal clients include digital assets engineering and financial firms looking for “yields that might be difficult to access in typical credit and lending arrangements.”

“This has been done on a very limited basis,” Liams said.

“Given the fast growth of our platform, this is definitely something where creating a unified platform for those kinds of opportunities inside Abra — we anticipate the need would grow.”

The new head of trading strategies will also be responsible for monitoring risk, both when it comes to asset management and coordinating with the lending side of the business.

Barhydt said Abra isn’t now engaging in proprietary trading with client money, but may in the future consider prop trading with the company’s own balance sheet. 

The Abra head also said the company is considering starting institutional funds that would run client money — potentially in making its high-yield crypto products available via a fund format.

“There’s a huge opportunity to open up that model beyond just retail investors to institutional clients, including family offices,” he said.


Get the day’s top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening. Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter now.


Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (19).png

Research

Suilend has grown into the top money market and liquid staking provider on Sui. STEAMM, Suilend’s Superfluid AMM, presents a compelling avenue for growing market share within Sui’s DEX landscape and revenue generation for the protocol. Suilend’s multi-product suite position it well for owning market share across key verticals. While current metrics across the Sui ecosystem are likely inflated due to Sui Foundation incentive programs, SEND trades at amongst the lowest multiples in the lend/borrow sector, suggesting that a bull case for continued growth in the ecosystem may be mispriced.

article-image

Silk Road founder Ulbricht made a triumphant return to the Bitcoin Conference, 10 years on from sentencing

article-image

A Blockworks Research report looked at who could take up some of the marketshare in the launchpad space

article-image

Business-to-business stablecoin payments are on the rise, per a report from Artemis, Dragonfly and Castle Island

article-image

Crypto continues to do its thing: incentivizing behavior

article-image

Kraken will soon offer Backed ‘xStocks’ as Solana tokens

article-image

In a unanimous decision, the US Court of International Trade has ruled that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are unlawful