T. Rowe Price Digital Assets Head Macellari on Active Crypto

Almost three years have passed since the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs, bringing crypto and digital assets investing to a whole new audience. The asset class has evolved in that time, becoming a bigger and bigger part of investor and advisor plans. Finding the right approach to those assets, however, remains an important question, and the topic of the recent VettaFi webcast with T. Rowe Price Head of Digital Assets Blue Macellari.Key Takeaways: As the digital assets space has evolved with new ETF and ETP offerings, active management’s appeal has grown. Active’s ability to rapidly adapt to events and navigate asset dispersion can help meet advisor goals. T. Rowe Price offers a multi-token active ETF, TKNZ, that speaks to that approach. Macellari joined VettaFi head of research Todd Rosenbluth to discuss not only the available crypto and digital assets offerings out there, but the merits of an active approach to those assets. Macellari, who joined the firm in 2022, spoke to the fast-paced nature of the space and the dispersion therein on the webcast, titled T. Rowe Price Digital Assets and Active Crypto Strategies. For example, she explained, there are some notable gaps between different assets types in digital assets. Up until around noon Monday, Bitcoin was down 29% and hyperliquid blockchain assets up 101%, while ZCash was up 211%. That dispersion speaks to the virtues of discerning active management. “I think…there’s a lot of rich alpha to be captured by making these active decisions by going beyond Bitcoin in terms of your exposure and in terms of thinking through which tokens to invest in and when to hold them and what makes sense there,” she said. What’s more, single asset ETPs for digital assets have proliferated and added new challenges. Advisors and investors face the prospect of having to craft a digital assets portfolio amid a huge pool of strategies, she said. Active can help alleviate that, she said, pointing to T. Rowe Price’s research platform. “What we’ve sort of looked to do is in many ways bring what is so core to T. Rowe’s DNA, which is fundamental research, thoughtful active management, responsible supervision, to an asset class where active management matters more than almost anywhere else,” she said.Leveraging Active Investing for Digital Assets: TKNZThe firm’s researched approach helped it, for example, lean heavily into assets on the HyperLiquid network. The firm, she said, has leaned into HyperLiquid with an expectation of the SEC approving more related strategies. The firm’s T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF TKNZ benefitted, she said, from being well positioned to the space. It was positioned for NYSE and OKZ / ICE’s announcement about bringing HyperLiquid “onshore” to back a perpetual futures exchange. Despite crypto market headwinds, through its active approach, TKNZ has returned 18.3% YTD. TKNZ charges a 75 basis point (bps) fee for its multi-token approach. The fund launched earlier this year. The fund’s active approach, she said, helps it navigate the fast-paced, momentum-driven nature of crypto assets. See more: T. Rowe Price ETFs: TKNZ Tops Returns, TCAF Draws Most Cash Specifically, she noted, in the high speed crypto space, her team thinks through important questions at pace. The timing of trimming and adding positions as well as when projecting when growth and revenue materialize. They also look at catalysts, like elections, and macro trends. “What’s more important in an active context is the underlying assets in our ETF trade 168 hours a week,” Macellari said. “A quarter is a lifetime to wait to rebalance. We, I think, are the only ETF probably anywhere that has the ability to come in and trade the things that we hold even after markets close, even after NYCE’s closed.” “We can trade on the weekend if we have to and we can settle immediately,” she added. “And that sort of responsiveness I think is a critical tool in managing an active portfolio, managing any portfolio in digital assets.” For more news, information, and analysis, visit our Active ETF Content Hub.