In the last few days, there has been a series of news that suggests that the so-called “institutional investors” are preparing to enter the crypto market.
One of these comes from a Fortune interview with Adam White, the former head of Coinbase’s institutional products division, who has now moved to Bakkt, the huge crypto project of the owner of the New York Stock Exchange.
White was the fifth employee hired by Coinbase and worked at the company of one of the world’s leading exchanges for eighteen months. Now he moves on to work specifically on crypto-asset investment services dedicated to large institutional investors.
During the interview, White said that “in 2017, I saw a big shift. The interest in Bitcoin and other currencies started changing from retail to the institutional side. But the level of infrastructure of the existing trading sites often didn’t meet their expectations. That’s why they’re waiting on the sidelines. That’s why I joined Bakkt“.
White added that recent bearish market trends may give the false impression that investors’ interest in cryptocurrencies is declining, while in reality, institutions are “hungrier than ever”.
By observing the fundamentals of these new assets, trading volumes and advances in technology, crypto markets are simply following their own course, with continuous rises and declines.
In fact, the number of average daily cryptocurrency transactions has increased each year.
Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler argues that the current fragmented state of cryptocurrencies is reminiscent of the energy markets of the early years when they landed on the New York Stock Exchange.
She said: “The digital market is fragmented like the energy market in the early 2000s. ICE was the pioneer attracting more and more institutions to trade energy, which is what created today’s liquid market. We’re about to see a revolution on the same scale in cryptocurrencies“.
Fortune’s article concludes with the hypothesis that if Bakkt really is as Loeffler and White are telling it, Wall Street will start investing in cryptocurrencies as easily and securely as it invests in traditional stocks, bonds and commodities, and this could be a huge leap forward in the evolution of cryptocurrencies.
