Executive Summary
What’s Working with Allocators is a new Crypto Insights Group series designed to bring more clarity to what institutional allocators are prioritizing today and how managers are responding to those conversations. The goal is to create a space where managers can speak openly about what they are hearing, what is resonating, and how they have adapted their communication and processes to meet allocator expectations. Rather than focusing on promotion, the series emphasizes practical insight that helps both allocators and managers understand how engagement is evolving across the industry.
Each edition follows a structured framework that looks at allocator themes, communication tactics, lessons learned, and how managers are preparing for the next phase of market development. By keeping the format consistent, we hope to surface patterns in what drives allocator conviction and highlight approaches that others may find useful.
To launch the series, we’re sitting down with Laser Digital. They provided a clear view into what is shaping allocator conversations from their perspective. Their input sets the tone for what this series aims to deliver: real experience, real context, and practical insight for the broader market.
Can you give us an overview of Laser Digital Asset Management and the types of strategies you offer to investors?
Laser Digital Asset Management offers two main strategies to external investors: a flagship market-neutral investment strategy and a newly developed strategy seeking to offer yield on top of BTC performance. We have also incubated a proprietary multi-strategy vehicle offering exposure to liquid tokens and pursuing alpha strategy.
Our investor base includes TradFi, crypto native institutions, family offices, and HNWIs seeking to obtain exposure to digital assets through a regulated vehicle applying institutional risk-management controls. These investors seek exposure to the digital asset class, either by capturing total returns from select assets or through funding rates, staking yields, and DeFi interest rates.
We have observed a shift in allocator sentiment i.e. allocator conversations have evolved from favoring emerging crypto-native funds to preferring established TradFi managers now active in the crypto-native space and DeFi. We have further noted a more robust due diligence process by allocators, focusing not only on returns but also on controls set-up, counterparty risk management as well as sustainable returns.
What are the allocator themes you’re seeing?
We generally observe two trends entailing a different attitude between crypto native and TradFi investors:
- The former privileges highly onchain funds offering great liquidity and composability, with yield becoming slightly relevant;
- The latter places more relevance on stable yield and operational excellence, being more “sticky” in terms of capital allocation.
Nonetheless, as mentioned above, operational excellence and institutional controls are now increasingly relevant also for crypto native investors, who have recently started involving third party due diligence firms when vetting onchain products as part of their treasury management / vault strategies.
As a common trend, transparent reporting, and mixed onchain yield sources (not only purely crypto, but also MMF components or other alternatives) are increasingly of interest to both retail and institutional participants.
The composability of tokenized funds has become a meaningful and strategic mechanism for fund managers to source both AuM and fund secondary liquidity. At the same time, these high-quality tokenized funds are now the preferred instruments for hedge funds to use as collateral on DeFi to borrow stablecoins.
Compared to the past years, in addition to the rise of crypto ETFs as preferred beta-product of choice while compared with ETPs, onchain asset management products are now becoming a “must have” for institutional asset managers targeting onchain capital as well as for native asset managers seeking to tap into this pool.
What has worked well for you in attracting and engaging allocators?
We present our strategy clearly, transparently and according to best industry practice on real vs expected/simulated performance across all our materials and documentation. Furthermore, for certain products, we make available a live dashboard showing indicative returns daily, and leverage Crypto Insights Group platform for monthly official updates.
We structure the allocator's meeting through meticulous preparation, upfront provision of material upon request (including offering documents and DDQ), as well as ensuring senior attendance of AM representatives (including management and PMs). We strive to provide timely follow-ups to facilitate internal discussions for allocators as well as adapt to format requests (e.g. ad-hoc DDQ or reports).
As to communication strategy, we believe in providing accurate, transparent benchmarking against comparable competitor funds. We do so by:
- Delivering daily portfolio composition and performance updates if the funds are operated onchain;
- Offer strategic value-add by sharing Web3 domain expertise and delivering periodic updates, including ad-hoc risk commentary;
- Ensure performance is identified both as net and gross of fees and that any subsidization/fees waiver are adequately disclosed;
- We generally turnaround in less than 24 hours from initial request;
- We are active across major communication channels, ensuring, on the one side, strong communication compliance via monitoring tool, but also accessibility and user friendliness;
- We have recently enabled fully paperless subscriptions via our fund administrator for both on and off-chain products
What changes have you made based on what allocators are prioritizing today?
Allocator expectations have continued to evolve, and we've adapted our approach in several areas as a result. We've seen an increasing number of allocators prefer daily transparency reports and liquidity, if not in real time, and we've adjusted to this by offering a daily dashboard with indicative performance data.
We've also noticed that allocators are more aware than ever of counterparty risks and how investment managers deal with those. In response, we've been relentlessly working on an off-exchange tripartite arrangement to ensure safekeeping of fund collateral, and we've onboarded more counterparties to offer redundancy and reduce single points of failure. This enables more diversified trading strategies and greater operational robustness.
We've further observed that pure beta products failed to attract investors, which we see as a clear consequence of the rise of crypto ETFs. As a result, we've been working on upgrading our products toward more active strategies, seeking to offer extra return on top of single asset exposure.
What do you expect allocators to focus on over the next 12 months, and how are you preparing for those priorities?
Looking ahead, we expect onchain sources of yield to be a main target for onchain capital. In line with the points raised in Section 3, we'll continue enhancing the attractiveness of our funds by making them increasingly onchain native and DeFi-ready. This includes ensuring composability across chains as well as short liquidity cycles. We also believe strongly in the future of institutional onchain asset management and are pursuing new strategic initiatives in this space.
We also expect operational resilience to become a must for all allocators, whether onchain or off-chain. Laser Digtal AM started its journey with a compliant and institutional-first approach. While this might have limited more aggressive strategies or trading counterparties in the short run and resulted in higher costs, it proved to be the right choice. Laser Digtal AM has never experienced liquidation or material operational incidents, losses resulting from cybersecurity attacks, or material disruptions. We'll continue to emphasize how our strong risk management culture, asset and counterparty due diligence, and operational controls are essential to carrying out our fiduciary duties responsibly.
Finally, we see investors expecting live engagement across all channels. We're deploying more frequent newsletters, market updates, and industry thought leadership initiatives to showcase how Laser Digtal AM stands out in this space.
How has working with Crypto Insights Group supported your institutional engagement and transparency efforts?
Working with Crypto Insights Group has helped us streamline how allocators evaluate our strategies and access the information they need. Through the platform, our profiles and materials are presented in a standardized format that makes it easier for allocators to compare our approach with peers and understand the details of our risk management, operational controls, and strategy design. The monthly updates we publish through Crypto Insights Group provide a clear cadence for allocator engagement, and the benchmarking tools allow us to present our performance and positioning with greater transparency.
The platform has also supported more direct inbound interest from allocators, giving us a consistent channel for questions, feedback, and deeper conversations. Overall, Crypto Insights Group has strengthened the accessibility and clarity of our offering in a way that aligns with what institutional allocators expect.
Legal Disclaimer
Laser Digital: This is a marketing communication intended for professional investors in eligible jurisdictions only. It does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Forecasts are not reliable indicators of future performance. Capital is at risk. Please consult the relevant offering documentation before making any investment decisions.
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