Barry Silbert Reboots with Yuma Asset Management
Barry silbert, the Digital Currency Group (DCG) founder, has unveiled Yuma Asset Management. This new venture aims to invest in AI-driven crypto networks, notably Bittensor. After facing regulatory and market challenges, Silbert is injecting $10 million into this initiative.
Yuma Asset Management targets early-stage projects creating decentralized AI systems. These teams will earn rewards via tokens like TAO. Silbert believes Bittensor is a genuine AI solution, unlike many others he calls “AI pretenders.”
Yuma Asset Management seeks to support teams building AI infrastructure on Bittensor. The fund will attract venture-capital-like backers, including wealthy individuals and institutions, who can tolerate a total loss while betting on a monumental win.
While Silbert declined to specify a precise target or timeline, he contextualized the ambition by noting that the total capital raise for the two funds would not exceed Bittensor’s own market valuation, which currently sits at approximately $3 billion. To make this nascent ecosystem attractive for institutional capital, Yuma’s funds are being structured around familiar market concepts. bloomberg said one fund is being marketed as analogous to the Nasdaq,while the othre is compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The launch of Yuma last year occurred just weeks after the presidential election, a timing that coincides with a notable shift in the crypto-political climate. This move follows a difficult period for DCG, which faced a federal probe, layoffs, and fraud allegations in the aftermath of the FTX collapse. The exchange’s implosion saw asset prices plummet and regulatory scrutiny intensify.
