Bitwise Welcomes Legendary Financial Advisor Ric Edelman As Investor & Advisor

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 3, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Bitwise Asset Management, the leader in cryptocurrency index funds, announced today that legendary financial advisor and best-selling author Ric Edelman has invested in Bitwise and is serving as an advisor to the company.

Edelman is the founder of Edelman Financial Services, recently named the No. 1 Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firm in the country for 2018 by Barron's, with $22 billion in assets under management. He will work with Bitwise in its efforts to educate and support financial advisors looking to bring diversified exposure of cryptoassets to client portfolios.

"I'm thrilled to be an advisor to Bitwise and help further its mission to bring institutional-caliber crypto exposure to investors in the U.S. and around the globe," said Edelman. "There is a technological and financial revolution taking place right now with cryptocurrency that has far-reaching implications. Every financial advisor needs to educate themselves about this space, and most should be considering an allocation for clients. I look forward to working with Bitwise to help make that a reality."

A recent Bitwise survey of more than 450 financial advisors found that 83% had received questions from clients about crypto. Those advisors said that "education" and "regulatory concerns" were the two primary barriers to them making an allocation to cryptoassets for their clients.

"Ric has dedicated his career to helping investors build better portfolios and prepare for their future," said Hunter Horsley, Bitwise's CEO. "We're thrilled to have him supporting Bitwise's efforts to make high-quality crypto exposure a part of every investor's portfolio."

Bitwise launched the world's first cryptocurrency index fund, the Bitwise 10 Private Index Fund, in November 2017. The fund holds the 10 largest cryptocurrencies selected and weighted by inflation-adjusted market cap, with rules in place to ensure security, liquidity, and other safeguards. The fund is available to U.S. accredited investors with a minimum investment of $25,000; an "Offshore" fund is available for international accounts with a minimum investment of $100,000. For both funds, Investor Class units have a 2.5% management fee, while Institutional Class units (with assets >$1 million) charge a 2.0% fee. Investments can be made through IRAs, trusts, taxable accounts, and other entities.

Bitwise's research supports the case for investors making a small but dedicated allocation to cryptoassets in their portfolios. From January 1, 2014, through March 31, 2018, a 1% allocation to bitcoin—properly rebalanced—would have added 4.5% in total returns to a traditional 60% equity/40% bond portfolio without increasing the portfolio's volatility in a meaningful way.¹ The bitcoin allocation increased the portfolio's three-year Sharpe ratio by more than 20% at the end of the study.

Edelman joins a long list of prominent investors in and advisors to Bitwise from the asset management industry, including former Barclays Global Investors' CFO Alison Davis, former Wealthfront CEO Adam Nash, and current Western Asset Mortgage Capital Corporation CIO Anup Agarwal, among others. In August, Bitwise announced the creation of a new index advisory board featuring Srikant Dash, the former Global Head of Bloomberg Indexes and former Global Head of Research and Development for S&P; and Spencer Bogart, noted crypto analyst and partner at Blockchain Capital.

"We are on the path to a cashless future, and the cryptoasset market is simply too big to ignore," added Edelman. "Even more than that, the smart contract technology embedded in cryptoassets like ethereum has the potential to revolutionize huge portions of the financial industry. Financial advisors need to work right now to future-proof their portfolio against the technological changes taking place in the world today. Adding exposure to cryptoassets is part of that effort."

About Ric Edelman

Edelman is the founder of Edelman Financial Services, a $22 billion RIA serving more than 37,000 households directly and millions more Americans through hundreds of workplace retirement plans across the U.S. He has been named the No. 1 Independent Financial Advisor in the country by Barron's three times, and was ranked one of the nation's Top Wealth Advisors by Forbes in 2017. He is the author of nine best-selling books, including "The Truth About Your Future," "The Truth about Retirement Plans and RIAs" and "The Truth About Money." Edelman was the 2017 recipient of the International Association of Registered Financial Consultant's lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the financial community.

About Bitwise Asset Management

Founded in 2017, Bitwise Asset Management pioneered the first cryptocurrency index fund and is the leading provider of rules-based exposure to the cryptoasset space. The team is based in San Francisco and combines modern software expertise with decades of asset management experience, coming from firms including Facebook, Wealthfront, BlackRock, JPMorgan, US Commodity Funds, Goldman Sachs, and ETF.com. Bitwise is backed by leading institutional investors and is a partner to high net worth individuals, financial advisors, family offices, multi-family offices, investment managers and institutions in navigating the cryptoasset space. Bitwise develops funds, indexes, models, research, and other services. For more information, visit www.bitwiseinvestments.com.

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Footnotes

¹ "The Case for Crypto in an Institutional Portfolio," Matt Hougan, Bitwise Asset Management, May 2018. Available at http://www.bitwiseinvestments.com/research

Disclosures

Bitwise Asset Management, Inc. and its affiliates (collectively, the "Manager") are furnishing this release (this "Release") to sophisticated prospective investors for informational purposes only in relation to a potential opportunity to subscribe for redeemable, participating, voting shares ("Shares") in the Bitwise HOLD 10 Index Offshore Fund, Ltd. (the "Fund"). The Fund is a Cayman Islands exempted company. The private placement of Shares in the Fund may be offered to certain tax-exempt United States accredited investors as defined in Rule 501 of Regulation D promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 and certain non-United States persons pursuant to Regulation S promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933. This is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation for an offer to buy Shares in the Fund. Any offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy Shares will be made solely through definitive offering documents, identified as such, in respect of the Fund in compliance with the terms of applicable securities and other laws. Such definitive offering documents, if any, will describe risks related to an investment in the Fund (including loss of the entire investment) and will qualify in their entirety the information set forth in this Release.

Bitwise HOLD 10 Index performance prior to Oct. 1, 2017 represents a hypothetical, backtested, and unaudited return-stream that does not represent the returns of an actual account. Index performance does not include the fees and expenses that are charged by the Fund. Actual returns may differ materially from hypothetical, backtested returns. Backtesting is calculated by retroactively applying a financial model or Index-weighting methodology to the historical data to obtain returns. The historical backtested performance of the HOLD 10 Index was calculated by retroactively applying the Index Methodology (a financial model, or set of rules for calculating Index constituents and weightings) to a historical set of data in order to arrive at hypothetical Index performance. This performance history is not the performance of any actual account, but rather the result of applying a set of mathematical rules to a set of historical data in order to arrive at the hypothetical results of how the Index would have performed if it had, in fact, been in existence during the historical period. The inception date for the index is Oct. 1, 2017. Backward-looking performance cannot predict how any investment strategy will perform in the future.

Performance of an index is not illustrative of any particular investment. It is not possible to invest directly in an index. Exposure to an asset class represented by an index may be available through investable instruments based on that index. The Manager makes no assurance that investment in cryptocurrencies based on the index will accurately track index performance or provide positive investment returns.

No Advice on Investment; Risk of Loss

Prior to making any investment decision in respect of the Fund, each investor must undertake its own independent examination and investigation of the Fund, including the merits and risks involved in an investment in the Shares, and must base its investment decision—including a determination whether Shares would be a suitable investment for the investor—on such examination and investigation and must not rely on the Manager or the Fund in making such investment decision. Prospective investors must not construe the contents of this Release as legal, tax, investment, or other advice. Each prospective investor is urged to consult with its own advisors with respect to legal, tax, regulatory, financial, accounting, and similar consequences of investing in the Fund, the suitability of the investment for such investor, and other relevant matters concerning an investment in the Fund. This Release contains a limited overview summary of the terms of the Fund. The summary set forth in this Release does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the definitive offering documents relating to the Fund. Do not place undue reliance on this Release.

SOURCE Bitwise Asset Management

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