#cryptoequityexperts

[thecryptoequity]

Crypto Equity Funds Have USD $19 Billion Under Management

might decline in importance for crypto projects and that in their place traditional investment and venture capital will become more significant.

“We have already seen a shift in the space from initial coin offerings (ICOs) and token sales to equity,” Carlos Domingo, the co-founder and CEO of Securitize, a security token platform, tells Cryptonews.com. “Venture capitalists (VCs) want to have direct ownership of companies in addition to certain rights, and the ICO model doesn’t provide this. This is why we’ve seen traditional VC investment growing as the ICOs fade away.”

However, this transition probably won’t happen immediately. "We do not expect such large investments (about USD 10 billion) in 2020 through venture funds in the area of ​​startup blockchain," ICObench’s spokesperson says.

Still, there has been a steady increase in venture capital investment in blockchain- and crypto-related start-ups over the past few years. In the first three quarters of 2018, almost USD 4 billion of venture capital was pumped into the crypto ecosystem across 384 separate deals, compared to only USD 1 billion in 2017.

Meanwhile, 2019 saw both token sales and venture capital funding taking a hit, with VC investment in crypto and blockchain amounting to USD 822 million by the middle of the year.

Still, as token sales decline or stabilize at a modest level, and as the crypto ecosystem matures, traditional venture capital is likely to grow in importance, particularly as companies increasingly produce minimum viable products. According to a study from Crypto Fund Research, the total assets under management of crypto funds (including venture funds) has risen consistently to USD 19 billion as of October.

https://cryptonews.com/exclusives/will-venture-capitalist-steal-spotlight-from-token-sales-5582.htm

[thecryptoequity]

Large US Investment Banks Developing Crypto Products

As CCN reported, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley, three of the largest investment banks in the US, have already developed a wide range of products including a trusted custodian solution to serve institutional investors in the cryptocurrency market.

Morgan Stanley is said to have developed the infrastructure required to provide complex derivatives tied to Bitcoin, with the plans of launching Bitcoin swap trading as soon as the bank sees enough demand from institutions for crypto.

To remain relevant in the fintech space and connected to the cryptocurrency space, Harding said that banks are closely working with newly emerging fintech companies to study the cryptocurrency market and will soon allocate capital into the asset class.

“A lot of banks are healthily skeptical about bitcoin and blockchain. 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. There is a lot of money being poured into [blockchain and cryptocurrencies],” she explained.

https://www.ccn.com/expert-banks-are-enthusiastic-towards-crypto-waiting-for-regulators-to-invest/

[thecryptoequity]

Crypto Equities Appearing In Retirement Funds

Index funds have more than proven their worth as a preferred option for those with an eye on retirement. But now there is conversation about the value of adding bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to this investment mix.

Given crypto’s volatile nature to date, risk tolerance is obviously a factor to consider for any financial portfolio. Juxtapose that with those investors who are in position to risk a potential loss, and Bitcoin’s value proposition as a key of any retirement portfolio looks a more bit promising.

Much of this talk comes as individual retirement accounts (IRAs), which allow participants to tuck away funds for retirement in a tax-advantage vehicle, are garnering increased attention.

With increasing numbers of sophisticated IRA investors seeking to diversify their retirement account holdings into nontraditional assets, it should be no surprise that cryptocurrencies are now part of the conversation.

With an eye on these emerging trends, the Westlake, Ohio-based Equity Trust Company, a financial services firm with $25 billion in assets under its custody (as of December 2017), recently launched a digital asset platform which allows the firm’s retail and institutional clients to invest in cryptocurrencies. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/equity-trust-builds-new-frontier-crypto-based-retirement-accounts/

[thecryptoequity]

Crypto Asset Valuation Study

Within the cryptoasset space, valuation has been a hotly debated topic for many years. During 2016 and particularly 2017 it was a relatively simple discussion, which in the parlance of the space was “when moon”, reflecting the market’s upward trajectory and an ever-hopeful voice that 10x or even 100x could be possible in the span of a month (which it sometimes was, especially in December ‘17/January ‘18). This optimism was not surprising in a year where Bitcoin began at ̃$1,000 and saw an end of year peak of ̃$20,000. Nonetheless, there were many grappling with how to look more deeply at the fundamentals of valuation of a cryptoasset and/or its related project and how those two could be considered to intersect.

Much of 2018 has been a rather different year and a question we often hear now is "when tulips" or more precisely "what tulips" and a much stronger focus on valuation. While we cannot answer the "when," we can provide a range of options as to the "what," and the lens that we provide certainly can paint a picture of certain areas of cryptoassets as having relatively strong fundamentals; while others appear heavily skewed, driven by speculation and not necessarily justifiable valuations. We would further note that these aspects will continue to have real world consequences beyond market price, including standards around disclosure practices and GAAP reporting which do not currently have a well-fitting framework. These are issues that we will continue to explore in later notes.

https://research.bloomberg.com/pub/res/d37g1Q1hEhBkiRCu_ruMdMsbc0A

[thecryptoequity]

Huge Growth Potential If The $130 Trillion of Global Institutional Assets Under Management Moves Into Crypto Equities.

Financial experts consider custody to be the biggest obstacle. Lack of proper custody discourages the participation of financial institutions, hindering the flow of big money into the crypto market. In this regard, Robert Dykes writes:

Global institutional investors have $130 trillion of assets under management. A tiny slice of that moving into crypto will have a huge positive impact on an industry whose market cap remains under $300 billion.

But, according to Dykes, to attract this kind of money into the market, “the crypto industry needs to provide the facilities and tools these big-money players are used to.”

Hence, Bitcoin bulls are getting excited about the fact that big names like Coinbase, Goldman Sachs and an increasing number of incumbents are starting to embrace the cryptocurrency space. https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-price-7000-wall-street/

[thecryptoequity]

Significant Institutional Entry Into Crypto Equities

For months, the cryptocurrency market has waited for the expected entry of institutional finance, an event which is expected to herald its coming-of-age as a bona fide investment asset class with a long-term future. By and large, a torrent of banks and funds pouring money into crypto assets has not materialized, driven in part by fears of regulatory uncertainty, and the erratic and unconventional behavior of the asset.

This series of quiet but deliberate moves by Northern Trust, however, could signify the beginning of a significant investment influx to crypto markets. In an interview with Forbes, Pete Cherecwich, president of corporate and institutional services at Northern Trust confirmed that a shift is indeed taking place, and he highlighted the reason why.

“You can take anything today. You can take movie rights, you can take all sorts of entities, and you can create a token for those. We have to be able to figure out how to hold those tokens, value those tokens, do those things,” he said.

While Northern Trust didn’t reveal the identity of the hedge funds it's working with, in this new area of engagement, Cherecwich dropped a tantalizing hint, by mentioning that the project is with three “mainstream hedge funds” who are adopting a significant investment position in digital assets. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/financial-services-firm-opens-doors-crypto-hedge-funds/

Financial Services Firm Opens Doors to Crypto Hedge Funds

This series of quiet but deliberate moves by Northern Trust could signify the beginning of a significant investment influx to crypto markets