In this episode, Ben sits down with Pranav Kanade, Portfolio Manager of Van Eck's Digital Assets Alpha Fund. Pranav left an illustrious career as a credit Portfolio Manager at Millennium to lead Van Eck’s active crypto hedge fund strategy. The institution's robust platform paired with Pranav's thesis-driven investment process shines a light on how TradFi and crypto are blending together at the highest level of the investment world.

Let's get into it.

Timestamps

2:47 What is the Ethereum Shapella upgrade and how important is it?

7:03 What is your background?

14:33 How does your credit and distressed investing experience contribute to your current work at Van Eck?

16:31 What was your pitch to Jan Van Eck on launching an active crypto hedge fund strategy?

22:19 What’s it like running a crypto strategy within a highly regulated, large institution?

25:30 What are the investment themes that you are most focused on in the short-term?

29:41 What are some NFT innovations that are under appreciated?

32:40 What infrastructure needs to be built for institutions to participate on-chain?

36:20 USDC vs. a potential US Dollar denominated CBDC?

43:00 How correlated are assets currently and how does that influence your portfolio construction?

47:06 What is your most contrarian take in crypto?

50:35 What is your most contrarian take outside of crypto?

56:29 Where can people learn more about you?

Resources Mentioned

Shapella

ERC-4337

Van Eck Bitcoin Strategy ETF

Homebase

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Connect with the guest

Follow Pranav on Twitter https://twitter.com/pkan90

Follow VanEck on Twitter https://twitter.com/vaneck

Van Eck https://www.vaneck.com/corp/en/

Disclaimer

Ben Jacobs is a partner at Scenius Capital Management. All views expressed by Ben and the guests of this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Scenius Capital Management. Guests and the host may maintain positions in the assets or funds discussed in this podcast. You should not treat any opinion expressed by anyone on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy but only as an expression of their personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

Van Eck - Pranav Kanade (Episode #17)

Scenius Studio