Better questions = Better decisions
Ideas for putting capital to work, on your terms.
Two decisions that shape how your capital is put to work
Two choices that shape how capital is put to work, supported by access on your terms.
Read articleWhat would you want to understand first?
Risk is more than a headline return. Consider how a strategy could lose value and whether its structure protects your capital.
Read “Two kinds of risk, and most people only measure one”An investment can perform well and still be a poor match if you cannot access your capital when you need it. Check notice periods and settlement terms.
Read “Liquidity is a match, not a feature”Risk is not only about performance. It is also about the structure around your capital and who has permission to act.
Read “Access on your terms”Ideas worth spending time with.
A more thoughtful approach to money, built on risk, liquidity and access.
Two kinds of risk, and most people only measure one
Trading risk is how much a strategy can lose, while structural risk is whether the arrangement around it can fail. Family offices check structure first. How each works, how AI helps monitor both, and what to ask.
Read articleLiquidity is a match, not a feature
A fund's liquidity terms say what the fund can do, while your needs say what your life requires. Managing liquidity means matching the two. How family offices do it, what the 2026 private credit queues showed, and how AI makes it routine.
Read articleAccess on your terms
Getting into a strategy is only the first part of access. How you hold it, see it and act on it, and who else can, matter just as much. The six parts of access, what AI changes, and why the owner should control the interface.
Read articleThe AI rich won't pay for what AI can do
Anthropic's IPO is about to make a lot of people wealthy, and they already treat wealth management like procurement. What they'll pay for, what they won't, and why their first problems are risk, liquidity and access.
Read articleLet's stop confusing people with the term 'crypto'. For now, focus on what finance onchain opens up.
The word crypto covers very different assets and technologies. Looking at them separately reveals what onchain finance can make possible.
Read articleCold, warm and hot: where your assets sit when nobody is watching
Binance lost $6.3 billion from its hot wallets in about 20 minutes on 29 October 2026. What hot, warm and cold storage actually mean, why cold storage alone isn't enough, and the structures that keep a manager's trading separate from where your assets sit.
Read articleIdle capital: who makes money on your cash while it waits?
Every portfolio keeps cash in reserve, and someone usually earns a return on it. Often that isn't the owner. Broker cash sweeps, money market funds, stablecoin issuers and tokenised funds, and how to find out who is capturing the return on your idle capital.
Read articleEvery handoff is a counterparty
Between you and the asset you think you own sits a chain of other parties, each of which can fail, freeze or reuse what they hold. Silicon Valley Bank and USDC, the Reserve Primary Fund, MF Global, FTX and the October 2026 Binance hack show how handoff risk works, and how to map your own chain.
Read articleThe psychology of money is mostly a question of structure
How thoughtful structures can help people make calmer decisions about risk, liquidity and access—and where AI can help or hurt.
Read articlePermissioned agents: let them act, but only within limits you set
AI agents can now trade, pay and move assets. Why every agent touching capital should work under explicit, limited and revocable permissions, what went wrong when they didn’t, and the principles that keep the keys with the owner.
Read articleAI is an accelerant for specialists, not a substitute for them
When leading AI models were given real money to trade, most of them lost it. Why AI amplifies the skill of specialists rather than replacing it, why having a model doesn’t make anyone the best trader in the world, and how capital owners can use AI to choose and oversee specialists instead.
Read articleHow to tell useful AI from AI theatre in wealth management
Every wealth platform now claims to use AI, and regulators are checking whether those claims are true. What AI washing is, the cases that defined it, and six questions that separate AI that genuinely helps with your capital from AI that’s mostly marketing.
Read articleResearch and Insights
For asset managers: reporting, fees, custody and the operations allocators now look at as closely as performance.
For managers, the back office is now part of the pitch
Allocators fund around 5% of the managers they meet, and more of them now judge operations as closely as performance. Why NAV, fees, high-water marks, reporting and custody have become part of how a strategy is evaluated, and how infrastructure can carry that load.
Read articleThe hidden cost of operational friction
Every manual handoff in a fund's operations costs time, introduces error and shows up in due diligence. Where friction comes from, what it really costs an emerging manager, and how to remove it without building an operations team.
Read articleCalculating NAV correctly, and why it matters more than ever
NAV drives every fee, every report and every allocator's view of a fund. Why it should be calculated by someone other than the manager, reconciled daily against custody, and how errors turn into enforcement cases.
Read articleGetting the high-water mark right for every holder
A high-water mark sounds simple until holders join and leave at different times. How per-holder high-water marks work, where they go wrong, the regulatory risk of getting them wrong, and why enforcing them in code builds allocator trust.
Read articleWhy fee calculation should be automated
Management fees, performance fees, introducer fees and expenses all have to be calculated correctly for every holder, every period. Why manual fee calculation is a regulatory and relationship risk, and what transparent, automated fees look like to an allocator.
Read articleManaging allocator interest without a CRM team
Allocators commit to around 5% of the managers they meet, often after months of quiet consideration. How emerging managers can see who is engaged, who has gone quiet and who is ready to talk, while respecting allocators' privacy and keeping control of capacity.
Read articleAutomated factsheets and the confidence they project
A factsheet is often the first and most frequent thing an allocator sees from a manager. Why automated factsheets built on verified, source-labelled data give allocators the insight they want, and what consistency and provenance say about the team behind the strategy.
Read articleCustody is now the first due diligence question
After $6.3 billion was taken from Binance's hot wallets in October 2026, every allocator considering an onchain strategy wants to know where the assets sit while the manager trades. Why custody has moved to the top of due diligence, and the structure that answers the question.
Read articleFund operations for managers: questions and answers
Answers to common questions about fund operations, reporting, fees and custody.
Read articleFind your next answer.
From the big questions to the details behind MakeBanc.