Consulting firm Greenwich Associates released a report on September 12th that polled 141 executives from institutional investment firms.
Participants in the survey worked at a range of organizations including asset managers, investment banks, hedge funds, and brokers.
The report showed that individuals at these organizations overwhelmingly believed that cryptocurrency will shape the future of the finance industry.
Of those polled, 38% thought that a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency would be developed. They believed that such a framework would consequently drive innovation and spark growth. Another 32% of those polled thought that, according to the survey, “many cryptocurrencies will fail but a few will survive and thrive”.
Still, there were skeptics among the participants. A small group of 10% of executives thought that cryptocurrencies will not move beyond a fringe asset class, while another 10% thought that regulatory crackdown would entirely eradicate the market.
And while the executives polled proved to be generally hopeful about the future of crypto, only 2% thought that it would eventually grow to disintermediate traditional finance.
The findings from the report might strike many as surprising.
The majority of finance executives believe cryptocurrency will be a significant part of the future of finance – despite the fact the crypto market has dropped over 70% in total market value since the beginning of 2018.
Looking at the sentiments of top executives may shed some light on their general optimism for the space.
According to a Caixin Weekly interview with Zhou Xiochaun, head of the People’s Bank of China:
With the transaction costs of paper money rising, people will be motivated to opt more for digital money.
Meanwhile, former Citigroup chief executive Vikram Pandit also explained his optimism for the future of cryptocurrencies in an interview for Bloomberg TV:
The reason I like the concept of virtual currency is because it's spawning a lot of innovation and thinking about how you transfer money around the world, how you store money, all those kinds of things. I think those developments can be used just as well for normal currency as they can for virtual currency, that's beautiful.
Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman is also positive about the space, noting in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that:
Bitcoin is certainly something more than just a fad. The concept of anonymous currency is a very interesting concept — interesting for the privacy protections it gives people, interesting because what it says to the central banking system about controlling that.
These leaders are among many who all have defended their belief in crypto with concrete reasons why they think it will succeed.
It is becoming evident that those who are steering the ship of the finance industry are keen to point it in the direction of cryptocurrencies. While it is difficult to imagine precisely the impact this will have on the future crypto market, these sentiments will no doubt offer some encouragement to investors as the crypto bear market continues.
