Last month, at the "Future Boundless" quantitative summit held in Hong Kong, Avenir Crypto, a subsidiary of the emerging family office Avenir Group, announced that it would invest $500 million to support the top quantitative teams in the market. Once announced, this move attracted widespread attention in the industry. At the same time, the founder of Avenir Group, Li Lin, the founder of Huobi.com, also caused heated discussions. After a period of silence, this veteran of the crypto industry returned to the market as the founder of an emerging family office, which made the outside world curious: What kind of institutions are Avenir Group and Avenir Crypto?

For this purpose, BlockBeats specially invited Jason Lan, CEO of Avenir Crypto, for an in-depth interview. According to Jason, Avenir Group was established last year and is an institutional family office. Unlike traditional family offices, its investment scope is more diversified, covering the fields of traditional finance and crypto assets. Its business includes crypto asset trading, quantitative trading, public market investment, private equity and venture capital. At the same time, as a newcomer in the family office, Avenir Group focuses on investment and incubation of emerging technologies, and is committed to promoting the deep integration of innovative finance and traditional finance, and further shaping the future pattern of the financial industry. Avenir Group has four sub-brands: Avenir Crypto, Avenir Capital, Avenir Innovation and Avenir Foundation, which fully demonstrates its comprehensive and strategic business layout.

Jason has been deeply involved in the field of crypto assets for many years and has rich experience. He is an important leader of Avenir Group's entry into the field of crypto investment. We are very fortunate to invite Jason to discuss with us the business layout, core concepts and insights of Avenir Group into the industry, and unveil the mystery of this new institutional family office. The following is a conversation with Jason compiled by BlockBeats.

Lan Jianzhong, CEO of Avenir Crypto

Avenir Crypto brings innovation to quantitative trading in the crypto asset industry

BlockBeats: Please introduce yourself first. I see that you have been in the traditional financial field. What opportunity prompted you to enter the crypto industry?

Lan Jianzhong: I developed a strong interest in technology and financial systems during my college years, which laid the foundation for my future career. I majored in Automation at Tsinghua University, focusing on software and information engineering, and then took an elective course in enterprise information management at the graduate level. After graduating with a master's degree in 2008, I joined Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong, responsible for technical work in stock and derivatives trading. As I accumulated experience in the trading field, my interest in stock and derivatives trading became stronger. In order to further improve my professional ability, I studied for a master's degree in financial engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2014, and systematically studied knowledge such as corporate finance, derivatives and stock pricing models. In this process, I met many outstanding classmates, especially Li Lin. In fact, we were classmates when we were studying for graduate degrees at Tsinghua University. In 2016, he came to Shenzhen from Beijing and invited me to join Huobi.com. His passion for the crypto industry and his unique insights into the future deeply impressed me, and I successfully assisted Huobi.com in establishing the derivatives trading section.

My knowledge and experience combine the needs of traditional finance and the emerging crypto industry, and I chose to transition from traditional finance to the crypto industry based on my forward-looking sense of the market. Since the rise of the crypto industry, I have felt that this will be an irreversible trend in the financial industry, so I have long had the idea of mainstreaming innovative finance, which coincides with the vision of Avenir Group. To this day, I am still confident in the prospects of the integration of the crypto industry and traditional finance.

BlockBeats: So you have extensive experience in traditional finance. Can you compare traditional financial commodity trading and crypto asset trading? What are the biggest differences? What are the differences between the two in terms of technical requirements, market volatility, risk management, etc.?

Lan Jianzhong: In terms of technology, the generation of crypto assets and the characteristics of technology-driven trading make them highly dependent on technology. For example, we provide 24-hour trading, and the trading volume and number of orders on major trading platforms are very large, so high-performance trading platforms are needed for connection, order routing and execution management. Compared with traditional finance, the technical infrastructure of crypto assets is not perfect and is still in the development stage.

In terms of market volatility, due to the lack of fundamental research, the market volatility of crypto assets tends to be dominated by market sentiment, news, funds and expectations for the future, which is different from the traditional financial market, which is more easily affected by company performance and market conditions.

In terms of risk management, the financial derivatives of crypto assets are not as perfect as those of traditional finance. At present, there is no perfect risk pricing market in the field of crypto assets. On the contrary, various risk pricing and interest rate pricing financial derivatives have been developed in the traditional financial market. For example, in traditional finance, we can use market tools such as credit default swaps (CDS) to assess the company's risks, but in the field of crypto assets, there are only spot and contracts, and there are no further risk pricing financial products and markets.

Based on the above differences, coupled with the differences in market operation time, regulatory environment, asset nature, and trading methods, there are significant differences in trading strategies, risk management, and investment considerations between the two.

BlockBeats: Congratulations again on the successful hosting of the "Future Boundless - Avenir Quant Summit". At the summit, Avenir Crypto announced the launch of the "Excellent Partner Program". What the market wants to know most is what Avenir Crypto mainly does?

Lan Jianzhong: Avenir Crypto is a crypto investment platform under the Avenir Group specifically for institutional investors. Our focus is on the innovation of crypto asset management and quantitative trading strategies, with the aim of providing institutional investors with opportunities for stable growth in the crypto market. Specifically, we rely on self-developed data models and risk management systems, and use a variety of means such as quantitative analysis and option strategies to continuously pursue outstanding performance and stable returns.

Avenir Crypto's strength is self-evident. According to the 13-F holdings report of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the second quarter of this year, we have become the largest institutional holder in Asia of the two major Bitcoin ETFs. Relying on our deep insights and outstanding performance in the field of Web3 and crypto assets, Avenir Crypto has always maintained a leading position in the industry. At the same time, another core mission of ours is to promote the development of financial technology, become a bridge connecting innovative finance and traditional finance, and help crypto assets become an important part of mainstream finance.

BlockBeats: The "Excellent Partner Program" invests $500 million to support excellent quantitative teams. What are the reasons and opportunities for the idea of investing in quantitative teams? Especially considering that the industry generally uses this money to invest in the primary market or do Lp.

Lan Jianzhong: The primary market is indeed important, but we believe that quantitative trading represents the innovation frontier of financial technology. The Avenir Crypto team has extensive secondary market experience, including professional backgrounds from investment banking transactions. We firmly believe that investing in quantitative teams is more in line with our technology-driven investment philosophy. By attracting the industry's top quantitative teams, we can not only increase the diversity of strategies and improve capital returns, but also hope to promote continuous innovation in the field of crypto assets and financial technology through common growth with these teams.

BlockBeats: What is the biggest vision and goal of this "Excellent Partner Program"? How can interested teams participate?

Lan Jianzhong: The vision and goal of the "Excellent Partner Program" is to attract outstanding quantitative teams in the industry through investment, and brainstorm to improve the diversity of investment strategies for quantitative trading. At the same time, through the synergy with quantitative teams in terms of capital, technology, analytical capabilities and global information networks, we will continue to promote the healthy and innovative development of the crypto asset trading industry and the financial technology field, and jointly explore the profit potential in the financial technology field, increase capital profits and create greater returns.

We have currently negotiated with more than 100 selected excellent teams, and look forward to more excellent quantitative teams joining the Avenir Crypto alliance. Interested teams can contact us through the official website or the cooperation email partners@avenir.hk.

BlockBeats: This year can be said to be the first year of ETFs for crypto assets. The United States and Hong Kong, China have approved their own Bitcoin ETFs, etc. Avenir Group is also the largest Bitcoin ETF holding institution in Asia. How do you view the phenomenon and trend of the integration of traditional finance and crypto assets?

Lan Jianzhong: I think the integration of traditional finance and crypto assets and the emergence of crypto assets as an asset class are undoubtedly the biggest trends in the next few years, and one of the keys to the integration of the two is regulation. Any financial product that wants to grow bigger and stronger in the market and continue to develop must be included in the regulatory framework to protect the rights and interests of external investors. The integration of the crypto asset market and traditional finance, the former can use the long-standing mature verification of the traditional financial market within the market regulatory framework, and it is easier to incorporate crypto assets into mainstream society as alternative assets.

In addition, we have observed that this trend will bring different opportunities for different types of investors, such as traditional high-net-worth individuals, investment banks, etc., as well as trading strategies. Crypto assets and their derivatives have a low correlation with traditional financial markets and can be used as excellent alternative assets to effectively hedge the potential risks brought about by the high correlation of traditional assets.

BlockBeats: One of the most important foundations of quantitative trading is data and models. How does Avenir Crypto develop its own strategies?

Lan Jianzhong: Avenir Crypto has invested a lot of resources in data, investment research strategies and infrastructure construction. We have a professional team to collect data, including on-chain and off-chain analysis, investment strategy research and global macroeconomic research, and conduct in-depth analysis of the impact of major events such as the presidential election on the market. These data will be handed over to different trading teams for factor decomposition, building a dedicated factor library, and extracting effective factors from massive data through machine learning algorithms, which will then be applied to a variety of trading models. In addition, the group has a professional risk control and trading execution team responsible for asset strategy risk control and efficient trading execution. Our investment research team also pays close attention to global macroeconomic trends and establishes an intelligent investment factor library. These are the core competitiveness of Avenir Crypto.

Avenir Group's Vision

BlockBeats: You just mentioned that Avenir Crypto is an important part of Avenir Group, which was founded by Mr. Li Lin, so can you first tell us what kind of organization Li Lin's family office is?

Lan Jianzhong: Avenir Group was founded by Mr. Li Lin in 2023. Our goal is to become a global, industry-leading family office and investment management group. We mainly focus on investments in emerging technologies and financial technologies, promote industry development through a diversified and robust investment platform, and become a bridge between innovative finance and traditional finance. At present, our business has expanded to the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, building a diversified and innovation-driven global investment ecosystem.

BlockBeats: What are the main business layouts of Avenir Group now?

Lan Jianzhong: Avenir Group has four sub-business brands, including Avenir Crypto, Avenir Capital, Avenir Innovation, and Avenir Foundation.

Avenir Crypto is the key business of Avenir Group, focusing on innovation in crypto asset management and quantitative trading strategies, providing professional institutional investors with steady growth opportunities.

Avenir Capital is our global multi-asset allocation platform, committed to establishing a risk-balanced multi-strategy investment system, achieving sustained, stable and diversified growth, and providing investors with all-weather global asset allocation solutions.

Avenir Innovation focuses on the fields of future technology and artificial intelligence, promoting technological change through capital support, supporting visionary innovative companies and entrepreneurs, and becoming a capital pioneer in artificial intelligence innovation.

As part of the family office, Avenir Foundation plays an important role in public welfare and charity. This family foundation was founded by Mr. Li Lin and is dedicated to promoting educational innovation, talent cultivation and academic research on a global scale. It has funded a number of educational and scientific research projects in Asia and plans to expand these efforts to the world.

Overall, Avenir Group is not only focused on crypto asset trading, but also a diversified family office with a wide range of multi-asset classes and multi-strategy investments. Investments cover traditional finance and crypto asset fields, including crypto asset trading, quantitative trading, public market investment, private equity and venture capital.

BlockBeats: From a longer-term perspective, what is the vision of Avenir Group?

Lan Jianzhong: The name Avenir means "a better future" in French, which also represents our vision - to become a technology-driven global diversified investment platform, continue to innovate and promote the progress of the financial industry, and use the power of technology and innovation to shape a better future.

The future and opportunities of crypto trading

BlockBeats: I understand. Let's go back to the crypto industry. I know that you have a deep understanding of the industry status of various mainstream regions of the crypto market, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, etc. How do you view the development of the crypto market in these regions?

Lan Jianzhong: Recently, I have visited many countries and regions around the world to conduct inspections and conduct compliance and market research. I found that different countries or regions have different regulatory attitudes and adoption levels for crypto assets. Among them, the United States and China are currently the two markets with the strictest regulation of crypto assets. In contrast, some developed markets such as Singapore and South Korea have adopted a more friendly attitude towards the development of crypto transactions, while some developing countries have adopted more flexible regulation of crypto assets and even accept them as new technologies and asset classes.

Although the regulatory requirements for crypto assets vary around the world, we will definitely respect the regulatory authorities of various countries and commit to actively comply with local regulations and requirements.

BlockBeats: What period of the bull market do you think the crypto asset market is in now? Because this year, Bitcoin has reached a record high after the ETF was passed, but the recent volatility has led to general market sentiment. What indicators do you focus on to judge this trend?

Lan Jianzhong: Avenir Crypto tracks mainstream crypto assets, especially Bitcoin, for a long time, and has an internal investment research framework and system to assist in investment decisions. Although its price has fluctuated recently, we believe that it is only a short-term impact caused by macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, which is a normal phenomenon.

Crypto assets are highly correlated with US stocks, Nasdaq and US technology stocks, and are therefore susceptible to factors such as the US election, economic recession, and expectations of interest rate cuts. In addition, the growth of stablecoins and the degree of perfection of the global regulatory framework also have an impact on the crypto asset table. Therefore, we need to pay close attention to all relevant indicators and do a good job of risk control and decision-making.

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