December 2023 Market Commentary and Performance
Market Commentary from Mark Witten, CIO
NEWS UPDATE: US BTC ETF — APPROVED
Although widely anticipated, it is excellent news that the BTC ETF has finally been approved by the SEC. It is both a testament to the power of Blackrock and the impotence of the SEC’s case to stop such an ETF. These 11 US ETFs can now join BTC ETFs in Canada, Germany, Brazil and Australia, as well as Jersey, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Guernsey.
The reason the US-domiciled ETFs are so pivotal is that the US has the largest Asset Managers in the world, including Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street and others as major voices that are well-heard by the world investment community. We believe this BTC ETF will be followed by ETH ETFs, SOL ETFs and then various market ETFs, all of which will enable growing investment in the fastest-growing asset class in history — Crypto Assets. This transformative sector includes Web 3.0, DeFi, tokenising real-world assets, the metaverse, gaming and many applications still to be discovered. Of course, there is a whole lot more to this space than BTC ETFs BUT for now, it is well worth CELEBRATING!!
Market Update
Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets (“Crypto Assets”) markets ended the year decisively with a strong rally in December as investors continued to allocate enthusiastically to the space.
The Portal Digital Fund finished December up +9.5% with the Radiance Multi-Strategy Fund up 19.03%. Bitcoin (BTC) gained +12.1%. We are pleased to report that for 2023 the Portal Digital Fund finished up +37% net of fees with the Radiance Multi-Strategy Fund up +77% net of fees.
To provide context here are some traditional asset class returns for 2023.
- S&P 500 22.2%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average 11.6%
- Gold 8.7%
- Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) 7.2%
- US 10-Year Treasury 1.6%
- Crude Oil 1.9%
We reiterate our view from early 2024 that this is the beginning of a secular bull market that is likely to play out into 2025. Full market commentary is attached.
Download Portal Digital Fund Performance.
Download Market Commentary
Download Radiance Fund Performance.
