Bitcoin’s soaring price over the past year had a lot of people asking themselves, “should I be investing in cryptocurrency?” Now, a new Seattle startup is helping people do just that.
Crypto investment startup Makara announced its launch from stealth in a blog post on Tuesday. Makara’s flagship product is an automated “robo-advisor” that lets people invest their money across a group of different crypto assets — like Bitcoin, Ethereum and more.
Robo-advisors have grown in popularity over the past few years because they offer people some of the benefits of having an investment advisor, without having to pay the premium of keeping an actual human on call. Instead, robo-advisors are made up of algorithms that automate certain parts of investing, and can give new investors a little guidance to make decisions based on their investing goals.
A handful of large financial institutions and fintech startups offer their own robo-advisors for stocks, bonds and other common forms of assets. But it’s rarer to see one that offers these services for crypto. Since robo-advisors tend to cater to people who are new investors and need a little guidance, Makara’s product seems like a good fit for people who are looking to get into cryptocurrency investing but don’t know where to start.
Most importantly, Makara says it’s the first cryptocurrency robo-advisor to be SEC registered — which may help reassure people who are nervous about investing in crypto.
Although cryptocurrency was previously seen as a fringe, semi-legal asset by critics, it has slowly become more and more mainstream over the past few years. A lot of people remember the high-profile rise of Bitcoin in late 2017, as well as the subsequent fall. But in the past year, Bitcoin grew from less than $6,000 in March of 2020, to over $60,000 in March of 2021.
And it’s not just Bitcoin. Other cryptocurrencies, like meme crypto Dogecoin, have also seen surges thanks in part to celebrity endorsements and business deals. All this is enough to capture the attention of even the most casual investors.
The technology for Makara was originally developed within crypto hedge fund business Strix Leviathan, before spinning out into a separate company. Right now, Makara is run by a team of six crypto professionals, most of whom worked together while at Strix Leviathan.
“Our team has traded hundreds of millions in assets, spoken with thousands of customers and stakeholders, compiled 27,000 code commits and witnessed Bitcoin both lose as much as 40 percent in the middle of the night and gain nearly 20 percent in a single day,” the company wrote in its blog post. “Experience is the teacher of all things.”
People can sign up for Makara’s waitlist by visiting the company’s website.
