The new hot trading jobs in multistrategy hedge funds involve weekend working
More so than ever, traditional financial services firms are getting into the digital asset space, but working within crypto markets is a different beast to what these firms are used to. Speaking under Chatham House rules, the chief investment officer of the crypto arm of a major multi-strategy hedge fund revealed today how hedge fund crypto jobs can be much more demanding in terms of your working hours.
The obvious difference between crypto and traditional markets is that the former operates 24/7. The CIO said that "you need a 24/7 team" and has built out "a depth of talent" in various different geographical locations to ensure someone is available at any hour of the day. He said that his team now exceeds 60 people.
While that accounts for the '24' aspect, the '7' is less easily obtained. The CIO said that there are "often great opportunities over the weekend," and that "you need traders who are willing" to work through weekends to capitalize on them.
How does this actually work? At hedge fund Qube, for example, crypto traders reportedly work four-day weeks while working every other weekend. Electronic market maker Jump Trading has a slightly different set up for production engineers; its 'weekend warriors' work the equivalent to a third of weekends per year, but working on those weekends involves a 12-hour shift. They, too, have the opportunity to have a four-day work week when not on weekend duty. Crypto native market maker GSR instead has its own team of dedicated weekend staff that take over from weekday staff. B2C2, another crypto trading firm, has staff cover weekends on a flexible basis and provides them time off in lieu.
For crypto native funds, this is old news. Nikita Fadeev, founder of crypto hedge fund Fasanara Digital, told us in the past that he works seven days per week and that the crypto industry requires a lot of commitment from its participants.
It's not just trading jobs that are more intense in crypto. The CIO said that risk management is uniquely different because "you have, by design, a fragmented balance sheet." Because of this, he said you need systems and people that "know where it is at all times and know how to move it fast."
Various top hedge funds, including Point72, Brevan Howard, Qube and Millennium, are active in the crypto space today, while prop traders that previously exited the space are dipping their toes back in. As their teams grow and new teams get established, there's going to be a lot of weekend working soon to come.
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