Financial institutions are paying lots of attention to crypto, but they need a little more from it first.
Institutional investors aren’t being overlooked at BlockShow Asia 2019.
At a panel titled “Unlocking Yield In Cryptocurrency Assets — Encouraging Institutions To Enter The Industry,” a number of crypto leaders shared their thoughts on how to make emergent financial technology accessible to mainstream financial entities. Speakers included Jasper Lee, Managing Director at eToro Group Asia; Justin Chow, Head of Business Development Asia for Cumberland; Saharan Nair, Chief Business Officer at CoinSwitch; and Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO at Bybit.
Moderated by DataDash founder Nicholas Merten, the panel covered the role of institutional investors within the crypto world, and the challenges these investors face in entering the crypto space.
Justin Chow kicked things off, saying:
“Custody, liquidity, and regulations are the top three petitions from institutional investors jumping into crypto.”
The other panelists agreed that these are essential catalysts, suggesting that institutional interest in crypto investing is growing day by day.
Another high point of the debate occured when Merten asked the panelists which countries are making the best effort to adopt cryptocurrencies. Jasper Lee said, “Which country is better really depends on what kind of business you want to focus on. For example, if you are in retail, you won’t go to Hong Kong. You would probably pick island licenses.”
Ben Zhou added: “From an exchange perspective, we are focused on retail clients. We are registered in the British Virgin Islands and have our headquarters in Singapore — the Singaporean government is open to crypto and blockchain technology. But I would love to see a framework in the US, at least on how to get a proper license so that we can actually get into the market. We know it’s a huge market, but we can’t touch it.”
Saharan Nair added that regulators have to make cryptocurrencies easy to use: “Regulations have to be designed for what the user wants and needs.”
