IDEG Appoints Coinbase Prime as Strategic Partner to Launch Ethereum Enhanced Portfolio

Asset manager IDEG has unveiled Ethereum Enhanced Portfolio as part of its new TIMES suite of products with Coinbase Prime as its strategic partner.

The new fund will be part of the “TIMES” suite of products, which stands for – Trust, Interest, Mining, Yield Earnings, and Structured Solutions.

TIMES Suite of Products

The new actively managed investment vehicle would track the performance of ETH. The end goal is to improve investor returns by capturing spot and futures basis with its arbitrage strategy while simultaneously minimizing the often-volatile delta exposure of the asset. As per the official press release, the strategy aims to outperform Ethereum.

The TIMES’ suite of products will provide qualified investors with exposure to digital assets through a professionally managed and third-party custody service. Emma Hu, a Product Partner of IDEG, highlighted the difficulty faced by institutional investors to include DeFi “on-chain” strategies into their asset allocation despite the potential positive returns. She continued:

“IDEG’s portfolio of managed fund products offers excellent alternative solutions to gain varied crypto exposure. The Ethereum Enhanced Portfolio is our first of such products, providing qualifying investors an opportunity to capitalize on Ethereum, the most renowned smart-contract platform while enhancing risk-adjusted returns compared to holding Ethereum.”

British Virgin Islands-based IDEG Asset Management Limited is the offshore fund manager of a BVI Approved Manager licensed IDEG Group. It is designed to manage investments of various products in the TIMES product shelf. The latter is a multi-strategy thematic product shelf that focuses on institutional players to access market opportunities with different risk exposure access digital asset space.

Relationship With Coinbase

Coinbase will serve as the prime broker and custodian for IDEG, extending its alliance that can be traced back to 2019. Kayvon Pirestani, Head of Coinbase Institutional Sales, APAC, also commented along the same line and added,

“We are thrilled to be expanding our relationship with IDEG and supporting their development of innovative crypto investment products. We are committed to providing best-in-class service to help achieve shared success, attract more professional and institutional investors into the space and see further growth in the market.”

Going forward, the asset manager also intends to roll out additional thematic funds under the TIMES umbrella. These could be actively managed multi-coin, decentralized finance (DeFi) yield farming, and GameFi/Metaverse play-to-earn (P2E) in-house strategies.