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Brevan Howard’s crypto fund slumped 30 per cent in 2025, as a downturn in digital assets stung one of the hedge fund industry’s highest-profile participants in the sector.
The BH Digital Asset fund, which bets on digital currencies but also makes venture capital investments in the digital assets sector, fell 29.5 per cent last year, its worst annual decline since its launch in 2021, according to people familiar with the fund’s performance.
The fund was launched with backing from Alan Howard, Brevan Howard’s notoriously private billionaire co-founder who was an early adopter and champion of digital assets. Bevan Howard’s digital assets unit managed $2.4bn in assets at the start of 2025, most of which was in the fund.
The fund made gains of 43 per cent in 2023 and 52 per cent in 2024 but suffered heavily last year, as crypto assets were buffeted by steep losses for technology stocks at risk of disruption from AI. The price of bitcoin, the world’s biggest digital currency, fell 6 per cent over the course of 2025 after a record-breaking rally gave way to a sharp sell-off.
“There are a lot of private equity and venture capital type investments [in the fund],” said one hedge fund investor. “They have underperformed bitcoin but to give them some credit, last year was terrible for crypto.”
The BH Digital Asset fund’s poor returns came during a tumultuous year. Gautam Sharma, its chief executive and chief investment officer, left Brevan Howard and was replaced by Chris Rayner-Cook, the former head of trading and financing at crypto exchange Coinbase.
Howard personally made a series of early venture capital investments in the crypto industry, including Copper, a crypto custody and trading firm that was chaired by former UK chancellor Philip Hammond; crypto exchange Bullish Global and blockchain horseracing video game Derby Stars.
This year, the BH Digital Asset fund has participated in funding rounds for companies including Superstate, which works to put traditional assets such as equities and bonds on a blockchain, and TRM Labs, which tracks illegal activities on blockchains, according to announcements from those firms.
Crypto assets have endured another difficult stretch at the start of 2026. Bitcoin has dropped precipitously and is down more than 20 per cent to about $68,000 a coin, having peaked above $125,000 in October.
Meanwhile, Brevan Howard’s other strategies had middling returns last year. Its Master fund, which makes money by betting on key economic indicators such as interest rates through assets such as currencies and commodities, gained less than 1 per cent in 2025, according to a person familiar with the matter. However, it had a strong January, gaining more than 4 per cent, the person added.