Fortress Investment bought some number of bitcoins directly in 2013. Bitcoin was the only red stain in their 2014 quarterly reports. Fortress quicky got rid of their bitcoins, swapping them for equity in the Pantera subsidiary that runs the PBP bitcoin fund. (Note: not shares of the fund, but shares of the managing company).
While I see articles noting that Fortress rolled their $20m bitcoin stake into Pantera, their latest 10K indicates they still seem to own bitcoin directly, and it traces back to the $20m original investment in 2013.
Go to link below and search for bitcoin, and you will see the $20m investment in 2012, the year end 2013 value of $16.298m, and year-end 2014 value of $6.828m, a 58% decline, which is consistent with the market decline from 12/31/13 to 12/31/14.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1380393/000138039315000003/fig-20141231x10k.htmThanks for the link!
Indeed, those amounts match 6828 k / ~315 and 16298 k / ~725 are approximately equal to 22'000 BTC.
You saw those articles too, so I was not dreaming. Perhaps the deal got sour after it was announced? Or perhaps Fortress actually swapped the raw BTC for PBP fund shares, not for Pantera equity; which, being pegged to BTC, are counted as BTC for the purposes of the report?
I had the same thought that it could reflect indirect holdings via a swap of the raw BTC for fund shares, but I don't think that could be the case, as Pantera doesn't just hold bitcoin, it also invests in bitcoin companies:
https://panteracapital.com/portfolio/ So there couldn't be a one for one match. And regardless, the Pantera website describes Fortress as a shareholder, so its investment in that entity would be treated just the same as any other shareholding.
So I think it must have fallen through, or just have been speculation. Quite frankly, it never really made much sense. By May 2014 when the deal was happening, Fortress' bitcoin were already underwater from a tax perspective, so if they wanted to get out of them, it would have made more sense to sell them and take the tax loss, and put new money into Pantera, than to try and roll them over. Also, it would have complicated all the deal documents, as others investors would be paying dollars.
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