Chris Tyrer, the head of Fidelity Digital Asset Management, believes banks have come around on crypto during the last year. He said the institutions are the future access points for the market.
Investment executives have noted that despite a growing demand for crypto among institutions’ clients, more regulatory clarity is needed before more banks step into the segment. The last 12 months have seen blockchain, distributed ledger technology, metaverse, Web3, and creator economies stepping into conversations.
Tyrer, at Blockwork’s Digital Asset Summit in London, said people have realized what the technology enables, where it’s going and what the future state is, and are much clearer about the direction of travel to get there. He thinks it has sort of solidified the investment thesis. Moreover, demand is coming through the banks through their traditional client bases as well.
Alexey Demyanov, managing director at Bank of America, highlighted that people often want to further the relationship with a bank they trust rather than move business elsewhere. He said the idea is to remove trust in a central party or trust in an intermediary, it is efficient, convenient, and safe to add a next relationship with the same institution. Traditional finance and disruptive blockchain technology will inevitably meet and become interwoven over time. Executives also touched venture-capital-funded financial tech companies. They said the companies would be able to take more risks by moving into mostly unregulated spaces. This puts the bar for banks and large asset managers much higher.
Rita Martins, the head of fintech partnerships at HSBC, highlighted the need for regulation. She thinks the big banks will not touch it, but there are other areas that can be looked at.
