Sygnum Bank Successfully Secures More Than 750 BTC for Market-Neutral Investment Vehicle
Switzerland-based Sygnum reports that its BTC Alpha Fund, employing a market-neutral approach, achieved 8.9% annualized returns during the fourth quarter while accumulating over 750 Bitcoin from institutional and professional investment sources.
Swiss digital asset banking institution Sygnum announced that its market-neutral Bitcoin investment vehicle delivered annualized returns of 8.9% during the final quarter of 2025, demonstrating increasing institutional appetite for crypto strategies focused on yield generation during periods of price volatility.
The banking group revealed on Wednesday that its Starboard Sygnum BTC Alpha Fund successfully completed its seed-phase fundraising, securing in excess of 750 Bitcoin (BTC) from institutional and professional investment sources within a mere four-month period after its October 2025 introduction to the market.
According to Sygnum, the investment vehicle represents a wider transition among institutional market participants toward structured Bitcoin investment products designed to deliver consistent returns while preserving exposure to the underlying digital asset.
"As Bitcoin becomes a core portfolio allocation for institutional investors, we're seeing growing demand for strategies that can generate returns beyond simple price appreciation,"
Markus Hämmerli, Sygnum's head of portfolio management
The investment vehicle achieved these results notwithstanding a significant downturn across the wider cryptocurrency marketplace. Data from CoinGecko indicates that Bitcoin valuations have declined approximately 25% from the time of the fund's introduction, underscoring the attractiveness of strategies engineered to produce returns that operate independently from price growth.
How does the fund's market-neutral strategy work?
According to Sygnum's disclosure, the BTC Alpha Fund produces returns through a combination of directional bitcoin positioning and arbitrage operations conducted on centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs), executing trades involving spot cryptocurrencies alongside derivative instruments.
"The fund's investment objective is to outperform BTC," according to information published on the fund's official web page, which further explains that the approach is structured to exploit inefficiencies and pricing discrepancies across different CEXs and financial instruments, encompassing perpetual swaps, futures contracts, options, and spot trading venues.
"Main strategies driving the performance are leveraged carry trades and cross exchange arbitrage,"
Markus Hämmerli told Cointelegraph
The fund generates and compounds returns denominated in Bitcoin. Participants in the fund can capture their profits through redemption of their shareholdings at the fund's calculated net asset value, enabling the investment vehicle to expand its Bitcoin holdings progressively rather than distributing cash or Bitcoin on a periodic basis.
"The fund's Q4 performance demonstrates that professional Bitcoin management can deliver meaningful results even when spot markets are flat or declining,"
Markus Hämmerli
Nikolas Skarlatos, the founder of Starboard Digital, the Greek enterprise that partnered with Sygnum to launch the investment vehicle, emphasized the difficulties institutional investors face when attempting to generate yields on their Bitcoin positions while simultaneously maintaining exposure to potential price appreciation.
"The fund's early results validate that institutional-grade Bitcoin yield strategies aim to generate 8–10% annual returns across market conditions,"
Nikolas Skarlatos, founder of Starboard Digital