Institutional money would undoubtedly change the investing atmosphere for crypto, but is it really coming?
Crypto analysts have been pounding the table for months now that institutional money is coming and when it does we will see an even bigger fomo rally than we saw late in 2017.
The claim has been that there have been 2 major hurdles holding institutions back from investing.
Those being a lack of regulator clarity and there being a lack of regulated and 'safe' trading markets for them to confidently enter.
We have gotten a lot more clarity on the first, at least in regards to bitcoin, and we have gotten some development in way of the second as well.
Specifically, the SEC said that bitcoin absolutely is not a security and there have been many custody solutions as well as regulated trading venues popping up over the past few months.
Is this really enough to get institutional money to enter?
That is the billion dollar question.
According to Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and BlackRock, and now Bloomberg, the answer is no:
https://ethereumworldnews.com/institutional-investing-bitcoin-etf-2018/
According to them there just hasn't been that much demand from their institutional clients to get into crypto.
Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock had this to say:
"I don’t believe any client has sought out crypto exposure…I’ve not heard from one client who says, ‘I need to be in this."
(Source: https://ethereumworldnews.com/institutional-investing-bitcoin-etf-2018/)
However, that may not be the whole story...
Just because they haven't seen much demand, or at least admit to that demand, there has been a few notable entrants into the crypto market that are just now starting to dip their toes in.
Notably I am talking about major endowments.
(Source: https://www.ccn.com/breaking-harvard-stanford-mit-have-all-invested-in-cryptocurrency-funds/)
Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT have all announced recently that they have invested in some crypto-related funds.
https://www.ccn.com/breaking-harvard-stanford-mit-have-all-invested-in-cryptocurrency-funds/
This is significant because Mike Novogratz said there will be fomo among endowments once they start entering the space.
According to Novogratz these endowments basically all invest in the same products, so when a few start investing the rest will follow.
These endowments collectively control hundreds billions of investing dollars.
Once they see the value of portfolio diversification with some crytpo holdings, they will all want some exposure.
So, while the demand may not be as high as we would like among other institutional clients, the endowments are starting to dip their toes in and that is a very big deal for bitcoin and crypto.
Stay informed my friends.
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