RockawayX announced Tuesday that it has acquired crypto hedge fund Relayer Capital for an undisclosed sum. Relayer will be rebranded as the RockawayX Liquid Opportunities Fund, which will focus on identifying undervalued liquid tokens and crypto-related equities using long and short strategies. RockawayX has roughly $2 billion in assets under management. Relayer founder Austin Barack will join RockawayX as CIO of the fund, and the company is looking to raise $150 million for the vehicle, according to a Forbes report citing sources familiar with the matter. According to the statement, Relayer's liquid strategy has delivered a net return of roughly 70% year-to-date, outperforming an equal-weighted basket of bitcoin, ether and solana by 86% as of Aug. 21.

The acquisition signals that larger institutional players are staffing up for active strategies again. RockawayX CEO Viktor Fischer said this is the right moment for the strategy, noting that there are now crypto businesses with real revenues and strong fundamentals that the market is still mispricing. That setup favors active investors who can underwrite fundamentals and take directional views. Barack said in the statement that crypto markets have bottomed and the current setup presents opportunities similar to the emergence from prior bear markets in 2020 and 2023. The emphasis on long/short and pair trades indicates that the fund will reduce broader market exposure when appropriate, not just ride beta.

For traders, this matters as a signal of where institutional capital is positioning. A marquee fund adding a liquid token specialist suggests that the next leg of institutional flows could target individual projects with strong fundamentals, not just BTC and ETH. The market snapshot shows funding at +0.5bp per 8 hours, slightly below the 30-day average of +0.6bp, while the Fear and Greed index reads 65, well above the 30-day average of 39, indicating elevated sentiment without the leverage extremes that typically mark local tops. The combination of rising sentiment and modest funding suggests that conviction buyers remain active.

Watch whether the fund discloses its top holdings in the first quarterly letter. If RockawayX names specific tokens or sectors, those names may reprice on the disclosure alone.

Source: The Block