Global hedge fund assets under management 2019, by country

The United States was the leading country in terms of hedge funds assets under management in 2019. Hedge fund managers based in the United States had assets under management worth around 2.7 trillion U.S. dollars. The United Kingdom followed with the second highest assets under management, reaching 463 billion U.S. dollars. Despite a sharp contraction during the 2008 financial crisis, the total value of assets managed by hedge funds worldwide increased considerably between 1997 and 2020.

How does hedge funds work?

Hedge funds are alternative investments in which a manager employs a wide set of different strategies in the attempt to provide investors with active returns using pooled funds. The strategies available to hedge fund managers are many, ranging from riskier ones, such as merger arbitrage, to other strategies aimed at reducing market exposure, such as the market-neutral one. Hedge funds require a relatively high initial investment, and they are typically accessible only to accredited investors, such as high net worth individuals (HNIs), pension funds, insurance companies, and banks.

Crypto hedge funds

As opposed to traditional hedge funds, crypto hedge funds pool capital from investors into assets focusing entirely or partially on cryptocurrencies. Currently, the main focus areas of crypto hedge funds are Ethereum and Bitcoin, and a significant correlation was found between the number of new crypto hedge funds launched and the price of the latter. The average assets under management of crypto hedge funds increased considerably since 2019, reaching a value of almost 43 million dollars as of 2020.