Gate Institutional AMA series with Blofin

2023-04-04, 01:21

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In the sixth episode of Gate Institutional AMA series Gokay interviews Griffin Ardern, a Macro & Volatility Trader at Blofin, a crypto-financial services company. They discuss various topics related to crypto asset management services. Griffin talks about his background and how he manages market volatility and risk in the crypto asset market. He also discusses his investment strategies and how he helps clients understand the risks and potential rewards of investing in cryptocurrencies. Blofin ensures the security and safety of its clients' funds and personal information through API trading, compliant custodians, and fund management teams. The company also provides various research content, including weekly market reviews and reports, to help clients understand the crypto market.

**Introduction**

**Gokay (Host)**: Hello everybody! Welcome back to the sixth episode of our Gate Institutional Ask-Me-Anything series. This is Gokay from Gate.io Institutional services. Our team manages a wide range of institutional clients, including hedge funds, institutional traders, high net worth individuals, and family offices.

In our previous sessions, we discussed various topics related to the crypto market, including market making, digital assets, risk management and regulatory compliance. And in today's episode, we will be focusing on "crypto asset management services".

So welcome to our stream with a crypto-financial services company "Blofin". Today we have special guest: Griffin Ardern, Macro & Volatility Trader at Blofin. Thank you for joining our stream. Nice to see you, Griffin! How are you? How do you feel?

**Griffin Ardern:** Thank you Gokay, I'm good! And thank you for your invitation and it's my honor to just have a talk with you.

**Gokay: **That's great! So, let's get started!

**Q1: Griffin, tell us a little about yourself. Who is Griffin Ardern? And what's your background?**

**Griffin Ardern:** My name is Griffin Ardern, and I am responsible for volatility trading and macro trading at Blofin. I am also responsible for writing part of the research content for Blofin Academy. Before joining Blofin, I worked for an FX trading desk in New Zealand, doing forex arbitrage and event-driven trading.

Before starting my career, I completed my Bachelor's degree in China and my MPhil degree in New Zealand, researching macroeconomics, derivatives, and quantitative trading strategies based on macro and derivatives.

Let me also introduce the Blofin. Blofin started in 2019 as a world class crypto field. Now, as you may know, Blofin provides crypto asset management services by focusing on small and medium-sized quantitative Hedge Funds to provide capital investments, lower trading fees, and other financial services.

**Gokay:** Thank you so much for sharing your background. I know that you come from the traditional vertical sector and this provides the item with lots of skills and importance, like information on how to be successful. That's great!

**Q2: What inspired you to start a crypto asset management service, and how did you get started in this field?**

Griffin Ardern: As an attractive emerging market, crypto is one of the <a href="/uk/price/quant-qnt" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Quant</a>'s best options.

On the one hand, the crypto market has relatively high volatility that emerging markets have, which means there are enough trading opportunities, especially arbitrage opportunities.

On the other hand, the infrastructure of the crypto market is complete, with few restrictions. We can quickly <a href="/uk/price/link-ln" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">LINK</a> with many exchanges through APIs and execute strategies faster without meeting so many additional requirements.

Apart from that, the crypto market offers enough trading products. We can combine multiple tools to realize our trading views: spot, futures, perpetual swaps, options, and others.
By the way, as a macro trader, I believe the crypto market is a 24/7 global market, meaning that liquidity is continuous and investors are sufficiently dispersed. Therefore, crypto has similar macro-trading attributes to FX, gold, and others. Crypto is a natural macro-trading underlying asset.

I participated in crypto asset management at the end of 2020. At that time, I had just finished working in the FX market and considered whether my next step was to study for a Ph.D. or trade at other markets, such as US stocks.

That's when my friend told me something about <a href="/uk/price/bitcoin-btc" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Bitcoin</a> and blockchain. I was hesitant at first, but when I saw its potential, and there were already a lot of institutions from the traditional market joining crypto trading, I thought to myself: "Okay, this is my next stop." So I joined Blofin and started working on crypto asset management.

**Gokay:** Well, thank you so much. And actually yes, that is correct. Because in the normal forex market, there is a lot of stuff happening that you can not trade, you need to wait. And in crypto, there is too much opportunity for you. And this is amazing. Like, I'm really happy to hear about this all.

**Q3: How do you ensure the security and safety of your clients' funds and personal information?**

**Griffin Ardern**: Good question. First of all, we have a variety of ways to manage user funds, such as API trading. In this case, the trader will not hold the user's assets or see clients' personal information. Secondly, our client's funds are stored by compliant custodians, and the fund management team is responsible for fund allocation and other operations, and traders will not participate.

For details about fund management, you are welcome to talk with our colleagues in charge of that. That's all I know as a trader.

**Gokay: **That's okay. Everybody has different professionalism. And in this case, you mention custody and I also want to mention that Gate.io right now is connected with the biggest custodian providers in the world. And we also provide our clients with the most secure service as much as possible in the market.

**Q4: How do you manage market volatility and risk in the crypto asset market?**

**Griffin Ardern**: Due to the volatility of the crypto market itself, we will strictly manage the exposure, especially the price exposure. Just understand, like several days ago, the price of <a href="/uk/price/bitcoin-btc" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Bitcoin</a> rocketed, I think more than 20%. So at this time, we have to be more and more careful.

In many strategies, we will adopt a management method based on the principle of delta-neutral. That is, strictly control the price risk, and make profits through basis, funding rate, or the price difference between different exchanges. In addition, we will also use option positions to control volatility risks. When the market fluctuates wildly, our option positions can hedge many risks for us.

**Q5: Can you tell us about your investment strategies and how you choose which assets to invest in?**

**Griffin Ardern:** Personally, I tend to allocate assets based on macrocycles. I bought some BTC and ETH in late 2020 but sold them in November 2021. The reason is that liquidity tends to flood after the middle of 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic and the following financial dilemma. The Fed continues to provide liquidity to the market to support the economy, but at the end of 2021, they began to prepare to adjust monetary policies and turn to tighten.

But in the Blofin team, as a volatility trader, I'm usually strictly delta neutral, profiting from market uncertainty through other exposures. For our team, we typically do not have preferred tokens but choose coins for trading based on quantitative algorithms and risk control models.

**Gokay:** This is what also I'm hearing from the old professional traders. Because in the retail market, people just want to get bind with some coin or altcoin and to believe they will get too much profile. When I talk with professional traders, they don't want to take risks. They don't want to bind with anything. If they see the profit, they are okay with leaving any coin or something.

**Q6: How do you help clients understand the risks and potential rewards of investing in cryptocurrencies, and what kind of education and resources do you provide?**

**Griffin Ardern**: Good question. In the crypto market, there are many data analysis tools. The cost of subscribing to tool sets is relatively low, so we have subscribed to many data tools and have reached long-term cooperation with some data & tools providers, using the analysis of these data to help our clients understand the risks and sources of returns in the crypto market.

In addition, we regularly provide various research content to the market, including our Twitter thread, weekly market reviews, reports released from time to time, etc. This year, we integrated the research content into Blofin Academy and cooperated with more institutions to jointly provide first-class professional research content for the crypto market. We are also producing some basic educational content, which will be released in the future to meet the needs of new crypto investors.

**Q7: How do you stay up-to-date with the changing and evolving world of cryptocurrencies, and how do you adjust your strategies and tactics in response to market changes?**

**Griffin Ardern**: Okay, so as one of the most volatile markets, the microstructure within the crypto market is constantly changing. This change is affected by macrocycles and changes in the composition of investors and builders within the crypto market. 
From my point of view, I usually communicate with some primary market researchers and venture capital managers to understand their thoughts and opinions about the crypto market, as well as some possible new directions of exploration. On the other hand, I also regularly read news and reports within the industry.

For trading, we usually adjust strategies combining macroeconomic changes and data-based analysis of the crypto market to adapt to market changes. For example, we will evaluate the impact of macroeconomic policies on the liquidity of the crypto market as one of the references for our strategy development and trading.

**Gokay:** I see, even if you are in a good position or you have great experience and background, the crypto sector is every time involving and changing. So that's why it's important to read reports and get updated. I think everybody should do this, because there is no magic formula that can fix all our problems. So we need to get updated and read it and learn it. That's great, thank you so much.

**Q8: What is your vision for the future of crypto asset management services, and how do you see your company evolving and adapting to changes in the market?**

**Griffin Ardern:** I believe that more investors and institutions will demand crypto asset management. The reason is that under the effective control of risk exposure, some unique attributes of cryptos (high volatility, high sensitivity, massive derivatives) can give users more attractive returns than traditional markets.

However, compliance issues in the crypto market may be the main factor that has troubled investors on whether they should allocate some funds to cryptos. Besides, a series of security incidents in 2022 has also affected investors' confidence in the crypto market. Therefore, on the one hand, Blofin has always adhered to compliance operations. We have already obtained some of the licenses and are working on obtaining additional management licenses in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, and other countries and regions. In addition, we continuously iterate and upgrade asset management and risk control systems to meet customers' compliance and security needs.

**Q9: How has Blofin's experience been so far working with Gate.io?**

**Griffin Ardern:** Gate.io has been working with us for a long time. Many of our strategies are operating on Gate, and this year, Blofin also started cooperating with Gate.io on content and user education, further deepening the relationship between us. We provide articles for the Gate Blog, where we share our weekly reviews, threads, and more. Personally, I also look forward to further cooperation between Gate and Blofin in the future and jointly providing crypto investors with better research content, products, and others.

**Gokay:** That's great to hear. We like to get from our clients or partners feedbacks. And this is what makes us, I think, unique because we listen and we try to provide them with what they need. We give value to our client's needs.

**Q10: And finally, what will be an important part for our viewers to take away from today's AMA session?**

**Griffin Ardern: **Stay optimistic, stay cautious. What is certain is that the crypto market has innovated and improved a lot in the bear market, and the positive impact of these innovations and improvements will also be seen in the bull market in the future. 
However, while remaining optimistic, we should remember that the crypto market is a highly volatile market with massive risk management tools. Therefore, remember to use these tools to manage risk exposure while investing and trading. May our wishes come true in the crypto market together.

**Ending**
**Gokay: **Griffin, thank you very much for all your time. Your insights have been truly informative, and I'm confident that our audience, who always watch us, now have a better understanding of You and Blofin. It was a pleasure to talk with you and learn all the details. Get in touch with Blofin twitter, read weekly market reviews and reports. 
Before we end our session, Griffin would you like to add anything else?

**Griffin Ardern**: Thank you everybody for watching us and thank Gokay for invitation. And don't forget to follow our Twitter and the Blofin Academy where we share our thoughts, ideas and some trading strategies.

**Gokay:** Thanks to everyone who joined to watch our AMA series. Follow us on social media, for more information, and write to our key account managers.

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