Lisbon-based investment company FUNDBOX together with Trading Platform Kvarn X launches KvarnPortugal Fund, a first-in-the-stroke crypto product based on the Coindesk 20 index, helping people investing at least 500,000 euros in the fund easily establishes residence there.
Here, Jason Dominic, co-founder of Kvarnportugal, and Anders Bjorkman, is discussing an active manager in the fund, which is why many individuals who are valuable are flowing to Portugal now and how their new fund makes it easy for them to create a back-up plan for today’s unpredicable world.
Question: Can you tell us what Genesis of this product was?
Jason: We realized that there is this great development that takes place in Portugal around Fintech and Crypto, and our fund is also eligible for the “Portuguese golden visa” that gives residence rights to people who invest at least 500,000 euros in the country. So we thought, wouldn’t it be nice if someone could actually marry the two together and be able to appeal to this new market that emerges? So if you want to invest in Bitcoin and Coindesk 20 index, we combined it into a unique fund where you put the minimum amount for a golden visa, and then because it is 100 percent invested through a Portuguese company, the golden visa is justified.
We collaborated with the Coindesk 20 index because it gives you a nice diverse spread. There is now a huge demand for Portuguese stay through such an investment product, and the United States is the largest market in the world for Portuguese golden visas. And there are also synergies with it with regard to the growth of crypto, especially with what is going on politically in America. Also in Asia you have China, which is the second largest market for Portuguese golden visas. Hong Kong also just officially embraced crypto with the massively participating Coindesk -Consensus event there. The Financial Secretary held an opening speech that welcomes cryptic businesses in the city, and in his new budget just announced, brought the new policies to achieve this. Hong Kong is expected to be a major hub for crypto assets in the next few years.
Question: What’s so attractive about Portugal right now?
Jason: In the last five to six years, Portugal has essentially become a Latin Switzerland. There has been a real development of wealth moving into the country along with growing entrepreneurship. And it has to do with the fact that there is a restructuring of the economy after economic crisis, where the government brought in all these new tax reforms and made it tax -free for people for ten years on certain overseas incomes and made investments such as crypto completely tax -free in many cases. So there is a huge migration of wealth going on globally, and Portugal is one of these most important nodes, beyond Dubai.
Anders: There is also a thriving crypto community here – a lot of meetings, projects, etc. and many people involved in crypto around the Lisbon area. It’s the best place for crypto in all of Europe if you ask me.
Jason: It knows ultra high net worth is that they tend to need mobility. And if you look at how this product works, they should only be in Portugal for 35 days over five years, and then they are justified for permanent stay or a passport. It is all mixed in a product and it is tax -free, which is what they always look for. It is for people who want a plan B or they want another stay without too many strings.
Question: Why are many wealthy people who want to establish residence elsewhere these days?
Jason: This year is about to be a record year for wealth migration. Recent studies expect about 142,000 ultra -high net worths of individuals to move out of mainly USA, China, UK, Brazil, India, South Africa and Vietnam.
The reasons why a mixture of things. The one that is all this global instability, and it looks like how wealthy people used to have holiday homes; Now they want a different passport for the family. Furthermore, their governments may be very tax napkins, just like what has just happened in the UK in the last few months, for example, over 10,000 multi-millionaires have left Britain mainly because of the tax regime is changing with the work government. In China, it has to do with geopolitical shifts and the desire to diversify to other assets. With Covid and the Lockdown that went there for almost two years, a lot of ultra -high -high net value of individuals in China wants to have the opportunity, if it happens again, to be able to get on a plane and go to Europe and not have to worry about getting a visa.
In the United States, it has to do with what has been going on politically because things have become so polarized. People just want a safe exit strategy if they need one. So it basically has to do with what’s going on globally – the world has just become far more unpredictable and unstable. Portugal is now a well -established safe harbor.
Question: How does Fundbox, the head of KvarnPortugal Fund, differ from his rival asset leaders?We are very careful with onboarding clients. We make sure that everything is done properly with due diligence according to all the rules of the Portuguese regulator. It doesn’t matter where you are from and how much money you have – if you do not fit the legal criteria, then you simply are not allowed to invest. There’s a big team. There are about 33 people in the office and it is an interdisciplinary company. So we have lawyers, compliance officers, onboarding team, etc. In addition to investment leaders.
Question: Should you be a golden visa candidate to invest in your fund?No, the fund is not only open to individuals with high net value. The minimum investment is 100,000 euros. So it runs looks like a ETF like Blackrocks, for example, where you can put lower quantities. And if you just want to sit there and get your Crypto investment fully managed, it’s an easy way to do it.
For more information Visit: https://www.kvarnportugal.com/.
The views and opinions of the authors are their own and not associated with Coindesk indexes. The interview was conducted by Coindesk -Indexes and is not associated with Coindesk editorial.
