Other People's Money with Max Wiethe

In this episode of Other People's Money, host Max Wiethe sits down with Shashank Chiranewala, founder of the new investment platform Plutus, to explore the future of independent research and portfolio management. Shashank explains why his platform is fundamentally different from the copy trading trend, emphasizing the importance of aligning model portfolios with an investor's unique risk-reward needs rather than blindly following a single strategy. They dive into the technical nightmares of executing global, active strategies on your own—like navigating foreign market rules and tracking errors—and how Plutus provides an automated, seamless execution solution for both individual and professional investors. Finally, they discuss why top independent researchers from Substack and FinTwit are choosing to list their portfolios on Plutus rather than launching traditional fund vehicles. Check out Plutus: https://www.runplutus.com/ Follow Plutus on X: https://x.com/RunPlutus Follow Shashank on X: https://x.com/sonny_seattle Follow Max on X: https://x.com/maxwiethe Follow Other People’s Money on: Apple Podcast https://bit.ly/4e7QJ1M Spotify https://bit.ly/3Yhaazi YouTube https://bit.ly/3C63VXR X https://x.com/opmpod Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:37 The Broken Options 03:54 From Research to Investing 04:28 Why Not Copy Trading 07:56 SPY and Portfolio Fit 12:25 Building Multi Portfolio Strategies 14:58 Menu vs Tools Debate 20:34 Execution Is the Moat 25:17 Meet the Research Partners 28:18 Who Uses Plutus? 32:04 Creators and Regulation 36:26 Big Vision and Tokenization 38:42 Taxes and Compliance 44:43 How the Platform Works 46:32 Conclusion

This episode is brought to you by VanEck. Learn more about the VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF: http://vaneck.com/REMXMax Sam Gaer, CIO of Directional Strategies at Monarq Asset Management, joins Other People’s Money to discuss how he uses quantitative directional strategies to trade crypto assets and produce an institutional quality return stream that has outperformed bitcoin at scale. He explains how his experience as a market maker, executive, and self-taught electronic exchange technologist driving some of the most important technological advances in finance led him to “burn the boats,” leave tradfi, and go all in on building institutional crypto strategies with Monarq. He also discusses how institutional appetite for crypto hedge fund strategies is growing with increased regulatory clarity, greater availability of institutional level funds, and evolving market opportunities in crypto-native and crypto-linked tradfi assets. Follow Sam Gaer on X: https://x.com/samg67 Follow Monarq on X: https://x.com/monarq_mgmt Follow VanEck on X: https://x.com/vaneck_us Follow Max on X: https://x.com/maxwiethe Follow Other People’s Money on: Apple Podcast https://bit.ly/4e7QJ1M Spotify https://bit.ly/3Yhaazi YouTube https://bit.ly/3C63VXR X https://x.com/opmpod Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:43 Q4 Crypto Volatility 06:21 A Disappointing Year for Crypto Bulls 10:29 Taking Advantage of Extreme Volatility 12:50 Triple Barrier Risk Management 15:43 $REMX 16:26 Responsible Leverage 17:17 Is the 4-Year Cycle Over 21:55 Early Days Pit Trading 24:16 Building Electronic Exchange Technology 26:38 CEO of NYMEX Europe and NYMEX IPO 27:24 Move to FINRA 28:43 Building and Selling a Volatility Hedge Fund 29:15 Burn the Boats 32:14 Joining Monarq 37:14 Differences Between Crypto Fund Managers and TradFi 39:17 Institutional Adoption of Crypto Hedge Funds 44:27 Can Crypto Strategies Scale to Meet the Demand? 47:19 The Crypto TradFi Collision 49:57 The Difference Between Institutional and Non-institutional Quality Crypto Funds 54:13 Hyper Liquid and Other Market Improvements in Crypto 59:26 Will TradFi Take Over Crypto? 01:01:31 Digital Asset Treasuries 01:08:46 The Next Stage for Monarq

This Other People’s Money episode is brought you by Fiscal.ai. Sign up for a 2-week free trial and get 15% off any paid tier at: http://fiscal.ai/mm Fundamental long-short equity investing has been in decline with fewer new fund launches and dwindling assets, but David Stemerman, CEO, CIO and Co-founder of CenterBook Partners believes data clearly shows these investors still have significant investing skill. He argues that single manger hedge fund data collected using alpha capture can be used to construct new portfolios and strategies that will be more attractive for institutional investors. Through a combination of direct payments, data sharing, and partnering with single managers on custom strategies he believes that that alpha capture can revitalize single manager hedge funds. Not all alpha capture strategies are made equal though and one of the biggest problems he is trying to solve is convincing managers and their LPs that alpha capture can be done without harming the returns of the manager. Read the white paper: https://www.centerbook.com/ACPaper Become a CenterBook Partners partner fund: https://www.centerbook.com/contributors Follow Max on X: https://x.com/maxwiethe Follow Other People’s Money on: Apple Podcast https://bit.ly/4e7QJ1M Spotify https://bit.ly/3Yhaazi YouTube https://bit.ly/3C63VXR X https://x.com/opmpod Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:40 Fiscal.ai 01:34 Single Manager & Tiger Cub Origins 02:45 Fundamental Long Short Equity Under Pressure 07:21 History of Alpha Capture 09:07 Responsible Alpha Capture 16:40 Fiscal.ai 17:58 Why Don’t Managers Adapt to Allocator Demands? 26:48 CenterBook's Current Alpha Capture Strategy 33:14 How Do You Manage External Partners? 35:38 Reactions From LPs at Partner Funds 39:46 Types of Allocators Are Interested in Alpha Capture? 41:53 Types of Managers Partnering with CenterBook 43:04 Is Alpha Theory a Requirement? 46:03 Scale Limits for CenterBook 48:39 Do Most Managers Have Skill? 53:15 Active Extension: The Future of Active Management? 01:03:13 Timeline for Single Manager Active Extensions

This Other People’s Money episode is brought to you by CAIA.nxt. Learn more about their alternatives education courses for investment advisors and get 10% off with code MMTEN: https://caia.org/content/welcome-monetary-matters-and-other-peoples-money-listeners Anatoly Crachilov, CEO and Co-Founder of Nickel Digital Asset Management, joins Other People’s Money to discuss why crypto is the perfect asset class for the multi-manager pod shop model. He also explains how Nickel is taking a “West Berlin” approach to partnering with external traders compared to the “East Berlin” approach of many traditional pod shops where non-competes and strict control of IP is the norm. He also discusses why 2025 has been a difficult year for crypto traders, how their team is managing the choppy markets, and how scaled up pods and incubation stage pods managed the extreme volatility in October. Follow Anatoly Crachilov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anatoly-crachilov/ Follow Max on X: https://x.com/maxwiethe Follow Other People’s Money on: Apple Podcast https://bit.ly/4e7QJ1M Spotify https://bit.ly/3Yhaazi YouTube https://bit.ly/3C63VXR X https://x.com/opmpod Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:38 CAIA.nxt 01:24 Multi-Manager Origin Story 03:12 No Central Book or Alpha Capture 04:32 Expanding Number of Pods 06:15 Technology Enabled Growth 10:09 Onboarding a New Pod 14:38 Benefits of Crypto's Infinite Divisibility 15:58 CAIA.nxt 16:54 Determining the Scalability of Strategies 18:03 Minimum & Maximum Pod Sizes at Scale 18:33 Measuring Risk Adjusted Returns 20:34 Pod Compensation and Fund Level Fees 24:43 Winning the War for Talent 29:29 Pods Can Be Independent Prop Shops and Single Managers 35:03 Demand for Crypto Multi-Manager Funds 39:02 Reducing Risk in Crypto with 3rd Party Settlement & Custodians 46:08 Crypto Still Has Low Liquidity 49:41 The Cost of Poor Trade Execution in Crypto 53:16 Current Environment for Crypto 58:22 Risk Management Adjustments in a Choppy Year 01:02:04 Different Testing Environments for New Pods 01:06:30 What Happens When a Scaled Pod Has a Drawdown? 01:09:35 Conclusion

This is a special bonus episode of OPM with David Orr. In my first conversation with David, we only discussed his hedge fund that has crushed the S&P 500 since its inception in 2021. In addition to his hedge fund, he also runs the Militia Long/Short Equity ETF ($ORR) which since its inception in January 2025 has also beaten the S&P 500 running a similar but still distinct long/short strategy from the one he employs at his hedge fund. We discuss his unorthodox decision to launch the ETF when the hedge fund was going so well, how he is managing the different liquidity needs, his dual fiduciary duties, differing compliance realities, and the increased transparency of the ETF wrapper. Follow David Orr on X: https://x.com/orrdavid Follow Max on X: https://x.com/maxwiethe Follow Other People’s Money on: Apple Podcast https://bit.ly/4e7QJ1M Spotify https://bit.ly/3Yhaazi YouTube https://bit.ly/3C63VXR X https://x.com/opmpod