Photo: Wally Gobetz / Flickr
In a recent interview with Forbes contributor Billy Bambrough, Coriolis Technologies CEO Rebecca Harding said that traditional banking institutions are turning about cryptocurrencies. This sounds certainly exciting considering the bank’s long-time animosity with digital assets.
Harding explained that the banking institutions have started to acknowledge the need for investing in the blockchain and cryptocurrency market. The banks are turning positive towards the development in these sectors but are currently waiting for more regulatory clarity to emerge.
“A lot of banks are healthily skeptical about bitcoin and blockchain,” said Harding. “They see the need to invest in it to keep up with technological developments, but they’re waiting to see where regulators fall and are working closely with financial technology (fintech) companies to make sure they’re not behind the curve.”
According to Harding, a growing number of banks have started to understand the power fo digital assets in moving money across the borders in a fast, cheap, and transparent manner. Hence, they have already sighted the risks of getting replaced by these more efficient systems. She added:
“There is a lot of money being poured into [blockchain and cryptocurrenices],” Harding added. “Banks are at risk of becoming nothing more than large fintech companies, people in the industry tell me.”
Changing Winds of Traditional Finance
Harding also pointed out that big tech giants like Amazon and Google have started to venture in this global financial space by adopting new technologies. Going ahead, they can emerge formidable competitors to the traditional financial institutions thereby reducing their dominance.
This year, we have seen that a number of banks across the globe joined the Ripple ecosystem RippleNet to facilitate instant global transfers at reduced costs. This shows that banks are willing to join blockchain projects which offer transparent and efficient functioning of the system. Harding thinks that over the period of time as crypto and blockchain become more mature and more number of banks adopt them, it can reduce the dominance of some of the most popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin is here to stay. It’s important. But as traditional banks increasingly adopt the features of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies they can, it will become less appealing to fewer people,” said Harding.
Bitcoin Still the Darling of Institutional Investors
A recent survey by market research firm Fundstrat shows the variance in the thought process of institutional and retail investors. On Thursday, October 4, Fundstrat published a report giving interesting insights based on the responses from institutions and “crypto Twitter” users.
Interesting results from the @fundstrat survey on the current state of Crypto. Major differences between Institutions vs Crypto Twitter. #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/GTQovGE4Jv
— Phil⚡️ (@PhilCrypto77) October 4, 2018
The Fundstrat survey showed that institutional investors are more clear about their prospects of investing while retail investors are vulnerable to rosy-eyed forecasts. As per the survey, both institutional and retail investor believed that Bitcoin price has reached its bottom. However, institutional investors were more confident than retail investors by a 10% margin. The survey also shows a higher number of institutional investors confident about Bitcoin’s future in 2019.
Nearly 57% institutions stated that Bitcoin will rise above $15000 in 2019 against 40% of retail investors. More interestingly, 72% institutions believed that crypto prices will rise in case of a recession.
Retail Investors Are More Confident About XRP
Fundstart says that the major divide between retail and institutions was seen when asked to predict the best performing digital asset of 2019. Additionally, they were also about the least favorite token. 59% Institutions chose Bitcoin as the best performing digital asset for 2019. Similarly, 46% retail investors chose XRP as their best performing crypto for 2019. Bitcoin came second at 31%.
However, the survey stats showed that XRP was the most polarizing among all other crypto assets like EOS, Ethereum, NEO, Tron, Bitcoin, and Stellar. Institutions believed that XRP made the least sense while citing concerns with its centralization.
The shows the variance in the views of institutions and retail investors about the crypto markets. Institutions have still to participate majorly in the crypto market. However, the latest report from Bloomberg shows that institutions have already started pouring money in the crypto market.
