Brevan Howard crypto fund posts 30% loss in 2025, worst year since launch: FT

Brevan Howard's flagship digital asset vehicle suffered its steepest decline since inception last year, shedding nearly a third of its value as the crypto market correction weighed on both token investments and venture capital holdings. 

The BH Digital Asset fund fell 29.5% in 2025, according to people familiar with its performance cited by the Financial Times in a report on Wednesday.

The fund, launched in 2021 with backing from Brevan Howard co-founder Alan Howard, invests in digital currencies and makes venture capital bets across the blockchain sector. Brevan Howard's digital assets unit managed $2.4 billion at the start of 2025, with the bulk of assets held in the BH Digital fund, FT said. 

The 2025 loss marked a sharp reversal from consecutive years of strong gains. The fund rose 43% in 2023 and 52% in 2024, benefiting from the crypto market's recovery from 2022 lows and bitcoin's rally past $100,000 in December 2024, per the report.

The fund's performance came during a year in which total crypto market capitalization declined 10.4% to $3.0 trillion, the first annual downturn since 2022, according to CoinGecko's 2025 annual crypto industry report. Bitcoin ended 2025 down over 6% after a record-breaking rally gave way to a sharp sell-off in the fourth quarter, significantly underperforming traditional hedges such as gold, which rose 62.6% during the year. 

Bitcoin has extended its losses into 2026, trading below $68,000 as it sits more than 20% down from its October 2025 peak, The Block’s crypto prices page shows.

Continued dealmaking despite losses

Despite the 2025 slump, Brevan Howard’s BH Digital Asset fund continued to deploy capital into various projects throughout the year. These investments were made as the firm’s other strategies delivered middling results, with the flagship Master fund gaining less than 1% in 2025, according to the FT report.

BH Digital participated in several funding rounds this year. Asset tokenization firm Superstate raised $82.5 million in a Series B round in January, with Brevan Howard Digital among participants. Blockchain analytics company TRM Labs reached a $1 billion valuation after a $70 million Series C reported on Feb. 4, with Brevan Howard Digital listed as an investor.

The unit also backed other deals in 2025. Nasdaq-listed miner Canaan secured $72 million through the sale of about 63.7 million ADS at $1.131 each, with BH Digital among investors. Startup Legion raised $5 million in a round led by VanEck and Brevan Howard Digital, with several crypto exchanges participating.

Structured protections on select investments

Some of Brevan Howard Digital's recent investments have included contractual provisions offering downside protection, a structure uncommon in traditional venture capital but increasingly present in institutional crypto allocations. Most notably, Brevan Howard's November 2024 investment in Berachain came with a refund stipulation active for one year following the BERA token's Feb. 6, 2025 token generation event, according to documents published by Unchained in November 2025.

The firm's Nova Digital subsidiary co-led Berachain's $69 million Series B funding round at a $1.5 billion valuation. Documents showed that Berachain granted Nova Digital a year-long refund right on its $25 million investment, exercisable until Feb. 6, 2026. It is unclear if this right was exercised.