BlockTower Capital

Of the two founders, Ari Paul had previously been a portfolio manager at the University of Chicago’s endowment and a derivatives market maker and proprietary trader at Susquehanna International Group; Goetz had been a vice president at Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry. The firm was initially backed by the venture capital firms Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry and Union Square Ventures.⁠[1][2][1][1]

On July 3, 2017, the flagship fund, BlockTower Capital Partners LP, filed its first Form D notice of exempt offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); the fund was organized in Delaware that year and was classified as a hedge fund. The investment adviser entity, BlockTower Capital Advisors LP, a Delaware limited partnership, commenced operations as an investment manager on August 15, 2017, the same day the flagship fund made its first sale of interests.⁠[3][3][3][4][5]

Ari Paul serves as the firm’s chief investment officer. BlockTower took both long and short positions across a range of cryptocurrencies and raised more than $140 million in 2017.⁠[2][2][2]

A fund organized in Delaware in 2018, previously named Shyn Capital Fund (US) I, LP and then Gamma Point Capital Fund I (US), LP, was renamed BlockTower Gamma Point Fund LP, with BlockTower Gamma Point LLC as its general partner. The fund’s Form D filed on August 2, 2021 showed a date of first sale of July 1, 2021 and $22,346,871 in interests sold.⁠[6][6][7][7][7][7][7]

Within BlockTower’s fund lineup, the Gamma Point funds made up the Market Neutral Fund, which combined multiple component strategies focused on risk-adjusted exposure to digital assets, such as arbitrage and yield opportunities.⁠[4][4][4]

The venture capital fund BlockTower VCStrobe VenturesStrobe Ventures is a crypto-native venture capital firm headquartered in New York. Formerly BlockTower VC, it was renamed Strobe by the same team in March 2025; it invests in DeFi, infrastructure, and consumer crypto projects, and in 2026 it participated in fintech company Tare’s $13.25 million seed round.Open the full entry I, LP filed a Form D on January 4, 2022. Organized in 2020, the fund reported a date of first sale of January 4, 2022 and $94,685,000 in interests sold; its general partner, BlockTower VC I GP, LP, was based in Miami. According to BlockTower, the Venture Fund invested mainly in digital assets and tokens, securities related to digital assets, and equity of privately held companies related to digital assets, blockchain, or other technological innovation, spanning protocols, infrastructure and middleware, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and gaming and social tokens, with a focus on early-stage and strategic financing rounds.⁠[8][8][8][8][8][8][4][4]

BlockTower Credit Partners, LP filed a Form D on July 29, 2022. The fund was a Cayman Islands exempted limited partnership organized in 2020, with a minimum investment of $100,000. BlockTower’s Credit Fund invested in traditional (non-crypto) credit and debt assets through an asset-backed private credit strategy that could include structured credit products, collateralized loan obligations, senior secured and mezzanine asset-backed debt, forward flow purchase agreements, and opportunistic credit instruments; the fund also received digital assets or tokens through its use of blockchain technology.⁠[9][9][9][9][4][4][4]

BlockTower’s credit business, BlockTower Credit, was launched by Kevin Miao as a roughly $2 billion institutional private credit fund focused on bringing real-world credit assets and securitizations onto blockchain networks; BlockTower selected Centrifuge as its tokenization infrastructure partner.⁠[10][10]

As of April 2023, BlockTower and the Market Neutral Fund resolved to commence an orderly wind-down of the fund and liquidate its assets.⁠[4]

BlockTower’s Form ADV Part 2A brochure, updated on March 29, 2024, stated that the firm was then an SEC-registered investment adviser with offices in Miami, Florida, and that its principal owners were Matthew Goetz and Ari Paul. As of December 31, 2023, the firm managed approximately $1,690,683,066 in regulatory assets under management on a discretionary basis and managed no client assets on a non-discretionary basis.⁠[4][4][4][4][4]

The brochure listed separately managed accounts and six funds as clients: the Flagship Fund, the Venture Fund, the Market Neutral Fund, the Credit Fund, and two special purpose vehicles, the Ledger SPV and the Blue Signum SPV, which invested substantially all of their investable assets in preferred shares and Series B preferred shares, respectively, of a single issuer. The Flagship Fund invested in digital assets and tokens and could also invest broadly in equity, debt, convertible securities, commodities, and derivatives related to the digital asset or blockchain industry, and had held illiquid positions through side pockets. The brochure stated that there were no material legal or disciplinary events related to BlockTower.⁠[4][4][4][4][4]

Under the brochure, the Flagship Fund’s management fees were 3%, 2.5%, and 2% per year depending on investor class, charged monthly on the opening account balance.⁠[4][4][4]

An amended Form D filed by the flagship fund, BlockTower Capital Partners LP, on November 14, 2024 showed cumulative sales of $238,808,504 since its first sale on August 15, 2017, with its principal place of business in Miami.⁠[5][5][5][5]

BlockTower Capital Advisors LP’s registration as an investment adviser with the SEC was terminated on February 21, 2025. As of October 2026, the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure system listed the firm as inactive, not registered with the SEC or any state, and not an exempt reporting adviser.⁠[11][11][11][11][11]

On March 12, 2025, BlockTower’s venture business, BlockTower VC, announced that it had been renamed Strobe and would continue under the same team. Strobe said it was a deliberately lean team that invested before market consensus and worked hands-on with fewer founders; it then had more than $235 million in assets under management.⁠[12][12][12][12]

On April 28, 2026, BlockTower Capital Advisors LP filed an amendment to its Form ADV and, the same day, withdrew its exempt reporting adviser status in Florida. The amendment listed BlockTower LLC as the general partner, with Ari Paul as its managing member.⁠[13][13][11][11][11][13][13]

BlockTower invested mainly in digital assets, cryptocurrencies, blockchain-based assets and networks, decentralized platforms or protocols, and related derivatives, and also in public equities, private equity and venture capital, and other traditional assets, as well as credit underwriting, structuring, and investing. Its strategies included directional trading and investing, fundamental research and asset selection, technical analysis, thematic and market sentiment investing, event-driven strategies, statistical arbitrage, early-stage venture investing, market neutral strategies, and quantitative and systematic strategies.⁠[4][4][4][4]

In addition to managing and trading a portfolio of crypto assets, BlockTower invested in the distributed ledger startup Hedera Hashgraph, the decentralized marketplace startup Origin Protocol, and the crypto media outlet The Block.⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/blocktower (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blocktower (opens in a new window)⁠[13]