Arca is a Los Angeles-based digital asset investment firm founded in 2018. The firm focuses on public blockchain investments and structured products, sitting at the intersection of traditional finance and crypto markets. Arca operates several strategies, including a registered closed-end fund, the Arca Digital Assets Fund, which gained attention for issuing ArCoin – tokenized fund shares recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. That structure made Arca one of the first U.S. registered funds to put its share registry on-chain.
The firm draws its identity from a traditional finance background applied to digital assets. Rather than focusing exclusively on early-stage venture bets, Arca targets liquid and semi-liquid blockchain tokens with a value-oriented lens. The team is known for an activist approach: publicly challenging blockchain projects whose token valuations looked misaligned with the capital sitting in their treasuries. The most widely cited example was an open letter to Gnosis in 2019, arguing that GNO tokens were trading at a steep discount to the project's own treasury holdings – a tactic borrowed directly from traditional corporate activism.
Notable investments
- ArCoin / Arca Digital Assets Fund – Arca's own registered fund, structured with on-chain share tokens. Described in SEC filings as a novel application of tokenization for a regulated vehicle.
- DeFi and Layer-1 tokens – Arca has publicly discussed positions in Ethereum ecosystem assets and governance tokens, though specific holdings beyond regulatory disclosures are not comprehensively public.
- Structured credit and yield strategies – The firm has written about tokenized credit instruments and participated in early on-chain bond structures.
Public information on the full portfolio is limited. The metadata available indicates 5 tracked portfolio companies and 7 lead investments, a relatively focused book compared to multi-stage venture funds.
Team
Rayne Steinberg is co-founder and CEO. He previously worked in traditional asset management before turning attention to digital assets full-time. Jeff Dorman serves as Chief Investment Officer and is the firm's most public voice. Dorman spent over a decade in traditional credit markets at firms including Lehman Brothers and Brocade Capital Management before joining the digital asset space. He writes a widely-read weekly market commentary called The Arca Weekly, which covers macro trends, token valuations, and industry structure. Hassan Bassiri has been named as a portfolio manager on the fund's liquid strategies. Additional team details beyond these three are not extensively documented in public sources.
Recent activity
Arca navigated the 2022 market downturn, a period that eliminated several peer funds entirely. The firm continued publishing research through the bear market and maintained operations into 2024–2025. In recent years, Arca has commented publicly on tokenized treasuries, real-world asset (RWA) trends, and the structural evolution of on-chain credit markets – areas where the firm's traditional finance roots give it a distinct analytical angle.
Exact AUM figures are not publicly disclosed. The firm has not announced a specific fundraise round or third-party capital close in recent years according to available public records. Retail ROI on tracked investments sits at approximately 6%, reflecting a cautious, value-oriented positioning rather than high-beta venture exposure.
Arca occupies a specific niche: a registered, compliance-first fund operating in digital assets with an activist and credit-focused orientation. As tokenized real-world assets and on-chain structured products grow, the firm's early work in that direction positions it as a reference point for institutional capital entering the space. Whether it scales AUM significantly will depend on how quickly regulated on-chain investment vehicles gain mainstream traction.
