In a sign that institutional and sovereign capital is no longer tiptoeing around digital assets—but stepping in with conviction—Further Asset Management and 3iQ Corp. have launched the Further x 3iQ Alpha Digital Fund, a market-neutral, multi-strategy hedge fund seeded with $100 million from institutional investors, family offices, and even sovereign entities.

For a sector that has spent the past decade courting “serious money,” this is the kind of moment that signals real maturation: a professionally structured, risk-managed digital asset fund designed specifically for institutions that have long demanded higher safety standards, stronger governance, and operational rigor.

The partners—UAE-based Further and Canada’s 3iQ, one of the earliest regulated digital asset investment managers globally—position the fund as a turning point in institutional-grade crypto exposure: stable, compliant, multi-strategy, and designed to deliver alpha without forcing investors to stomach the wild volatility the sector is known for.

And unlike many “market-neutral” crypto funds that quietly lean directional when the wind blows hard enough, this one comes wrapped in a framework that has reportedly already passed scrutiny from a set of major global allocators.

Why This Launch Matters: Institutional Crypto Goes From “If” to “How”

Institutional investors have always wanted exposure to the upside of digital assets—just without the existential risk, operational headaches, and regulatory uncertainty.

The new Further x 3iQ Alpha Digital Fund aims directly at that pain point.

Pascal St-Jean, President & CEO of 3iQ, put it plainly:

“This Fund directly addresses the core challenges institutional investors face when accessing digital assets… within a framework that meets the highest standards of institutional due diligence.”

That’s a long way from the early days of crypto funds—when risk controls looked like Google Sheets, custody was whoever remembered their hardware wallet PIN, and audits were years away from hitting mainstream expectations.

Today’s institutional crypto landscape demands:

• Market-neutral strategies
• Independent NAV verification
• Institutional-grade custody
• Segregated account structures
• Compliance that can survive regulator cross-examination
• Liquidity, transparency, and repeatability

This fund is pitched as checking those boxes, and the early involvement of sovereign investors lends credibility institutions typically demand before diving in themselves.

A Market-Neutral, Multi-Strategy Approach in a Volatile Sector

The fund positions itself as “market-neutral,” but the details matter. In crypto, that usually includes some mix of:

• Relative value trades
• Basis and funding-rate arbitrage
• Market-making strategies
• Trend-following signals with delta hedging
• Liquidity provision
• Volatility harvesting
• Cross-exchange inefficiency capture

The goal in a sector known for aggressive bull and bear cycles is to extract returns from market structure, not direction.

For allocators chasing “double-digit potential returns” (the language St-Jean used), but unwilling to take the full price volatility of Bitcoin or Ethereum, this product is designed to deliver hedge-fund-level sophistication without blowing up if the market turns violent.

The Bitcoin Share Class: A Quietly Significant Innovation

One of the standout features—and likely the most discussed among institutional crypto desks—is the Bitcoin (BTC) share class.

This structure allows investors to:

1. Subscribe directly in Bitcoin,
2. Stay fully exposed to Bitcoin,
3. Compound alpha in BTC, not USD or another currency,
4. And do so in a risk-managed institutional wrapper.

This is something many crypto funds talk about but rarely deliver well. Historically, BTC-denominated funds have come with a tradeoff: either add risk through leverage or lose clean exposure through hedging.

The Further x 3iQ structure claims to avoid both traps.

As Further’s Managing Partner Faisal Al Hammadi describes it:

“We’re providing institutional-grade, risk-managed and scalable access to digital assets, including Bitcoin… safely, securely and effectively.”

For long-term BTC holders—especially sovereign entities now building strategic Bitcoin positions—this is a compelling value proposition: keep your Bitcoin, grow your Bitcoin, and do it under institutional oversight.

Why the UAE and Sovereign Investors Are Moving First

The UAE has aggressively positioned itself as one of the world’s most crypto-forward jurisdictions, with:

• Progressive digital asset regulation
• A deepening sovereign interest in blockchain infrastructure
• ADGM and VARA licensing frameworks
• A rapidly expanding digital asset investment ecosystem

The involvement of sovereign capital in this fund launch is significant. Sovereign wealth funds historically wait until markets are both operationally mature and geopolitically relevant before allocating. Their participation signals a high-conviction bet that:

• Digital assets are now an investable long-term asset class
• Infrastructure risk has dropped dramatically
• Crypto strategies can achieve institutional-quality risk-adjusted returns
• Bitcoin, in particular, is becoming a strategic reserve asset

This launch aligns neatly with regional ambitions to make the UAE a global capital of digital finance—and with global trends showing more state-level interest in Bitcoin as a hedge against macro instability.

3iQ’s Ongoing Play: Institutional Infrastructure at Scale

3iQ has built a reputation around creating the kind of infrastructure institutional allocators want but that many crypto-native managers struggle to provide.

Their prior innovations include:

• The world’s first publicly listed regulated Bitcoin and Ether funds
• Institutional crypto custody frameworks
• Multi-strategy managed account platforms
• The QMAP (Digital Assets Managed Account Platform)

QMAP, in particular, is worth noting—it’s effectively a risk-managed wrapper enabling institutional investors to access hedge-fund-style digital asset strategies with clear oversight and operational scaffolding.

The new Further x 3iQ Alpha Digital Fund looks like a natural extension of that foundation: a way to package multiple alpha-generating strategies behind a compliant, institutionally acceptable wall.

What This Means for the Broader Market

This launch lands at a pivotal moment for digital assets:

1. Hedge funds are flooding back into crypto

2024–2025 saw a massive re-entry of traditional funds into the market, especially those specializing in systematic, arbitrage, and digital macro strategies.

A $100M market-neutral vehicle fits squarely into this trend.

2. Institutional due diligence is tightening

Allocators now demand:

• SOC 2-level controls
• Segregated custody
• Attestable valuation and audit frameworks
• Independent administrators
• Regulatory clarity

These requirements used to be blockers. Now they’re becoming selling points.

3. Sovereign interest is rising globally

From Singapore to Norway to the UAE, sovereign funds are either experimenting or quietly preparing digital asset mandates.

This fund gives them a way to step in without taking reckless directional risk.

4. The market-neutral niche is becoming a battleground

Funds like Brevan Howard Digital, GSR, and Nickel Digital all compete in variations of this arena. The differentiation now comes down to:

• Strategy breadth
• Infrastructure maturity
• Risk controls
• Counterparty management
• Ability to attract sovereign and institutional capital

Further and 3iQ are clearly aiming to enter that competitive field with heavyweight backing.

A New Phase of Institutional Crypto Investing

If the first wave of crypto investment was about retail enthusiasm, and the second wave was about hedge-fund experimentation, the third wave is now unmistakably institutional—and increasingly sovereign.

Products like the Further x 3iQ Alpha Digital Fund represent the infrastructure necessary to support that transition.

Crypto doesn’t need more hype. It needs vehicles that large allocators trust.

This launch appears to be built around exactly that premise.