Latest news with #JonathanRose
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
BlockTrust IRA Brings Quant Trading Tools to Crypto Retirement Accounts
As spot bitcoin BTC exchange-traded funds continue to grow and Wall Street wades deeper into crypto, more and more people are able to gain exposure to digital assets through their individual retirement accounts (IRAs). IRAs offer tax advantages and a range of investment options, including stocks, real estate, commodities and, increasingly, cryptocurrencies. But when it comes to crypto, there's usually only one investment strategy available: to buy and hold. It's a strategy that might work well for assets like the S&P 500, which have long track records of steadily appreciating over longer time frames, but bitcoin is still an extremely volatile asset and other coins even more so. The idea behind BlockTrust IRA, then, is simple: to manage the crypto positions of its customers in order to take advantage of that volatility and maximize their returns. 'We're the only company that has an AI tool meshed with traders that put people automatically in cash [when need be]. Then we wait for the right signals, and we buy back in,' Jonathan Rose, the firm's CEO, told CoinDesk in an interview. 'Where people are scared of volatility and scared of risk, we actually want the volatility and the risk associated with that, because that's how we actually make our clients money,' Rose said. 'We are right a lot more than we are wrong, and that's how we're able to beat the benchmark.' BlockTrust's secret sauce? Animus Technologies, a fund that provides intelligent asset management solutions for crypto. Animus has servers around the world and quantifies humongous amounts of data — to the point that a European government body has reached out to inquire what exactly they're quantifying data for, according to Rose. Animus typically only shares its signals with high net-worth individuals and fund clients, Rose said. In other words, crypto retail participants may now benefit, through their BlockTrust accounts, from the kind of trading mechanisms that previously were only available to quant funds. The sophisticated strategies are currently only available for bitcoin BTC and ether ETH, but BlockTrust offers exposure to 60 different cryptocurrencies, Rose said. Users of the platform can invest as little as $1,000 for non-managed accounts, or $25,000 if they want a managed account — and trading fees can go as low as 0.4% for the former and 0.14% for the latter. BlockTrust IRA went live officially in February. In March, the firm had accrued $10 million in assets, and Rose expects it to bring in roughly $100 million before the end of the year. The company's early success may also be due to the fact that it's not just open to U.S. residents, but to people all around the world, as long as they can pass its Know-Your-Customer (KYC) checks. Americans do have the added advantage of being able to use their tax-deferred retirement savings to gain exposure. Crypto markets are ever changing, and trading strategies that function perfectly for a long time may suddenly become outdated due to shifts in the economic environment or crypto-intrinsic changes — potentially threatening to render Animus' approach obsolete someday. But Rose isn't concerned. 'When [the people at] Animus Technologies go to these hedge fund conferences and speak, they always come back with a big grin on their faces, because they're like, 'We are so light-years ahead of anyone remotely doing what we're doing,'' Rose said. 'It's going to take like four to six years for people to even kind of catch up to us.' Sign in to access your portfolio
The Sun
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
UK energy operator probes unexplained power plant outages just hours before Spain & Portugal blackouts
Jonathan Rose, Senior News Reporter Published: Invalid Date, BRITAIN's electricity grid operator is investigating mystery outages in the UK's system hours before Spain and Portugal were plunged into blackouts. The control room staff at the National Energy System Operator (Neso) noticed suspicious activity on Sunday. 5 5 It confirmed there were unexpected shifts in the power frequency in the early morning and the evening. A steady frequency within certain limits is vital to keeping power flowing. The first problem in the UK, around 2am, was an outage at the Keadby 2 gas-fired power plant in Lincolnshire. That was followed by the unexplained failure of the Viking Link interconnector between the UK and Denmark. Neso, which manages the British grid, told The Telegraph that officials are investigating the cause. It comes as power was almost fully restored to Spain and Portugal on Tuesday. Many questions remain about what caused one of Europe 's most severe blackouts. Spain has launched a sabotage investigation into the devastating power outages based on two mysterious "events". The national grid released a timeline of the colossal blackout that has set alarm bells ringing - with cyberterrorism being considered. Suspicions were raised of a Russian sabotage attack almost immediately after the power failed, following a campaign of similar plots to hit Europe. Spain and Portugal power outage – Sweeping blackouts shut down internet & grind transport to a halt Juanma Moreno, president of the Andalusian regional government, said a cyber attack was the most likely cause - and claimed that everything pointed towards a deliberate scheme. Officials have scrambled to offer an explanation in the chaotic 24 hours since the outage - ranging from a freak weather event to complications with net-zero power generation. Red Eléctrica de España, Spain's electricity board, produced a report showing an event that caused "losses of power generation" at 12:33pm - followed by another just 1.5 seconds later. And the network between Spain and France was interrupted 3.5 seconds after that - leading to the widespread collapse of the supply. Based on the information, National Court judge José Luis Calama opened up an investigation to determine whether sabotage and cyberterrorism were at play. He demanded a more detailed preliminary report from the grid and investigators within ten days. He added that while the root of the blackout is still unknown, "cyber terrorism is among the possibilities". 5 5
