INVESTORY
Cryptocurrency has found its place in the list of assets for traditional, commercial
and investment banks.
A Bitpanda and GlobalWebindex report states that crypto-assets are already more
popular than art/antiques and bonds among active European internet users (See
Pict.1).
PORTFOLIO DIVERSIFICATION BY WEALTH
% of European internet users in these income
brackets who have the following
Cash/savings/pension
Gold
Real estate/property
Stocks/shares
Mutal/Managed Investment Funds
Annuities
Cryptocurrency
Art/antiques
Bonds
Other
Average no. of asset types
BOTTOM 25% MID 50% TOP 25% TOP 10%
50% 58% 71% 69%
8% 9% 16% 20%
23% 30%
25% 32%
16% 21%
12%
9%
6%
11%
6%
3% 5% 10% 3% 4% 6% 8%
3% 3% 6% 9%
3% 4% 9%
13%
3% 3% 4% 5%
1.3 1.5 2.0 2.4
DATA BY BITPANDA AND GLOBALWEBINDEX, JULY 2019
Pict.1
So, it is not surprising that both traditional
financial institutions and new players are
actively working to integrate digital assets
into the financial market infrastructure.
Founded back in 1964 investment firm Fi-
delity, for example, launched a platform
for Bitcoin and Ethereum. In more recent
news, the much talked about Bakkt — plat-
form backed my NYCE and ICE was the first
fully regulated and compliant platform of
its kind to offer monthly Bitcoin futures. The
National Bank of Canada, Barclays and even
Bitcoin and Blockchain
become just a great tool
to make banking an
efficient business again.
7%
4%
At the same time, two out of three crypto
hodlers actively use traditional saving and
investment products (See Pict.2).
cense from a financial regulator. In many
ways, this is a perfect example of what the
new banking industry may look like. Here,
we have a major figure from the traditional
world of finance bringing his expertise and
wisdom into the new world. Combining the
regulatory framework of traditional banks
with that of new innovative startups is how
this industry will efficiently evolve into its
next stage.
Speaking about innovative projects — look
at FinTech platform YouHodler, for example.
YouHodler offers high-yield crypto savings
accounts in USD and EUR with interest rates
as high as 12 % — a dream in the old world
and with sell rates at an average of 16–70%.
They are numbers that cannot be ignored
and they became possible because of effi-
cient integration of crypto into the mechan-
ics of traditional financial products — for
example secured loans in dollars and euros
with higly-volatile digital assets like Bitcoin
and Altcoin as collateral.
Another great example is the UK-based
crypto-wallet Wirex which enables crypto
exchange with 25+ cryptocurrencies and
fiat currencies using its built-in exchange.
Wirex also has a debit card, allowing users
to spend USD, GBP or EUR on their Wire ac-
count and giving users 0.5 % cashback in
Bitcoin for each purchase made.
When Bitcoin first arrived in 2009, many
predicted it would one day defeat the ma-
chine that is «big banks». Yet, a decade later,
Crypto-assets are already more popular
than art/antiques and bonds
among active European internet users.
hyper-conservative Wells Fargo and Gold-
man Sachs are demonstrating their involve-
ment in the crypto-industry.
Peter Wuffl, the former CEO of Switzerland’s
biggest bank, UBS, recently took up the role
as director for the newly created Swiss cryp-
to bank Sygnum.
Sygnum is just the second crypto bank
(along with SEBA) to receive a banking li-
we see nothing like that and realistically it
will not happen at all. Banking practices can
be traced back to the Roman empire. Since
then, they’ve more or less served the same
purposes.
Bitcoin and Blockchain become just a great
tool to make banking an efficient business
again. So, the future of traditional bank-
ing will not experience what the taxi and
hotel industries experienced after Uber
and Airbnb, at least not because of crypto.
Hello Monaco Winter 2019–2020 / 107
www.hellomonaco.ru