Former Citigroup executives seek $100 million for crypto hedge funds

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Citigroup Inc. executives who left the bank last month have formed Motus Capital Management, a firm that wants to make it easier for high-net-worth individuals to bet on cryptocurrencies. Alex Kriete, Greg Girasole and Frank Cavallo are seeking to raise $100 million for a pair of actively managed hedge funds that will focus on digital assets, the three said in interviews. They are each founding partners of Motus, the Latin term that’s the origin of the word “motor.” “Clients are hungry for returns,” Kriete said. “They’re wanting exposure, but they have a hard time telling what’s scammy and what are real investment opportunities.”

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Kriete and Girasole made waves last month when they left Citigroup less than a year after being picked to oversee a new digital-assets group inside the Wall Street giant’s wealth-management division. Before that, Kriete managed $3 billion and Girasole $5 billion for Citigroup private-bank clients. Cavallo was most recently an investment counselor at Citigroup, where he oversaw $8 billion of assets and held roles inside the firm’s cross-asset sales and trading division. The three will invest their own wealth in the Motus funds, they said in the interviews. The funds will not self-custody — meaning they won’t hold control of the private keys for their digital assets — and will limit the assets they hold with exchanges as part of their efforts to satisfy due-diligence processes with sophisticated investors. “We are working with best-in-class providers to meet the fiduciary standard our clients expect,” Girasole said. New York-based Motus intends