Digital Asset Investment Firm Canary Capital Launches New Axelar Private Investment Fund

The Canary AXL Trust will be available to institutional and accredited investors. Currently, Axelar (AXL) has a market capitalization of more than $444 million.

Digital asset investment firm Canary Capital has launched a new Axelar private investment fund, giving institutional investors direct access to the interoperability network’s native token, AXL.

As announced on Feb. 20, the Canary AXL Trust will be available to institutional and accredited investors. According to DefiLlama, Axelar (AXL) currently has a market capitalization of over $444 million and $195 million in total value locked (TVL).

Axelar's interoperability stack was deployed in October, enabling decentralized applications to integrate with multiple blockchains, such as Solana, Stellar and Sui. Developers can also tokenize real-world assets, including real estate, commodities and intellectual property, through Axelar's technology.

One of the key factors that prompted Canary to launch an AXL fund is Axelar's major institutional partnerships with Apollo Global Management, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank.

"We are looking at a handful of top 100 market cap protocols that have strong teams of developers building real applications and platforms [and] have the potential, based on developer interest along with launching product, to win in their category and make it to a large market cap, in addition to evaluating top 20 market cap protocols," Steven McClurg, CEO of Canary Capital, told Cointelegraph.

"Axelar fits in the category of interoperability. There is already demand for AXL among qualified investors."

Growing institutional demand for crypto The launch of Canary's new trust aligns with a surge in institutional demand for crypto assets. Canary is also seeking open-ended exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC) and XRP (XRP), in contrast to the closed-ended AXL Trust.

Following the remarkable success of the U.S. spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, which gathered almost $40 billion in net assets in 2024, the applications were submitted. According to Bitwise's Matt Hougan, the U.S. Bitcoin funds are anticipated to draw more than $50 billion from investors this year.

According to Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin, who spoke to Cointelegraph in January, increased regulatory clarity in the United States under President Donald Trump is expected to see more institutional uptake of digital assets in the near future.

Industry executives also mentioned President Trump's executive order prohibiting the development of a central bank digital currency as a major factor in institutional adoption.

"The move shows where Trump stands: He's gambling on the existing crypto market over making government-backed digital dollars. It's a vote of confidence in Bitcoin, Ethereum and others, potentially boosting their legitimacy and market value," Anndy Lian, an intergovernmental blockchain adviser, told Cointelegraph.

Representatives from the crypto and institutional investment industries recently met with President Trump's Crypto Task Force to discuss methods for making the market more accessible to larger participants. They asked for clearer regulations on exchange-traded products and protocol staking, among other things.