Wave Financial Wins First Round of Investment for Whiskey Fund Ahead of Tokenization

Investment management firm Wave Financial said Friday it has received its first round of investment from clients, and has purchased a 1,000 barrels of Kentucky whiskey it plans to tokenize for prospective investors. 

According to a press statement emailed to CoinDesk, Wave Financial purchased the whiskey from the Wilderness Trail Distillery of Danville, Ky., and plans to tokenize the holding in a year or two. 

Gold, cryptocurrency and real assets such as spirits have become favored alternative investments, according to the company. By tokenizing barrels of whiskey, in this case, investors gain exposure to, and benefit from, price appreciation of that asset.

• Launched in March, the fund completed its first tranche of capital raising and "purchased 1,000 barrels of physical premium Kentucky bourbon whiskey on behalf of our investors,” said Benjamin Tsai, president at Wave Financial, in the statement.  
• "Our extensive research has shown that the returns from aging Kentucky bourbon are very stable and strong over the circa five-year period it spends in barrels before being bottled," he added. "So we are delighted to be able to provide investors with exposure to this price appreciation."
  
• In the firm’s March announcement, it said it plans to tokenize a full year’s worth of whiskey produced by the Kentucky distillery, which eventually be 10,000 to 20,000 barrels of the whiskey, worth about $20 million. 
  
• Called the Wave Kentucky Whiskey 2020 Digital Fund, the tokenized investment offering aims to offer investors exposure to the whiskey’s value appreciation over time and share in some of the proceeds gained when the whiskey is sold to wholesalers in the market.