Pimco CIO Daniel Ivascyn says his firm is putting capital to work in cryptocurrencies

Pimco CIO Daniel Ivascyn says his firm is putting capital to work in cryptocurrencies

Fixed-income giant Pimco has dabbled in cryptocurrencies and plans to gradually invest more in digital assets that have the potential to disrupt the financial industry, according to chief investment officer Daniel Ivascyn. "Now we're looking at potentially trading certain cryptocurrencies as part of our trend-following strategies or quant-oriented strategies, then doing more work on the fundamental side," Ivascyn said in an interview with CNBC's for . "So this will be a gradual process where we spent a lot of time on the internal diligence side speaking to investors. And we'll take baby steps in an area that's rapidly growing." His comments came as  notched Wednesday following the successful launch of the first U.S. bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund. It is widely viewed as a landmark for the nascent crypto industry, which has long been pushing for greater acceptance of digital currencies on Wall Street. The world's largest cryptocurrency climbed around 4% to $66,416.86, topping a previous record of $64,899 set in mid-April. Ivascyn said some of Pimco's hedge fund portfolios are already trading crypto-linked securities. "We're trading from a relative value perspective. So we're not taking directional exposure, but we're looking to take advantage of mispricings between the cash product,