The overall hedge-fund industry may be struggling, with a large number of funds closing and aggregate performance lagging behind the broad US equity market, but one subsector is seeing blistering growth, thanks to the surge in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, MarketWatch reports.

Hedge Fund Research on Wednesday unfurled a pair of indexes tracking the performance of funds dedicated to cryptocurrencies and blockchain, the decentralised ledger technology that is the underpinning to bitcoin and other digital currencies.