The institutional acceptance of crypto around the world has accelerated significantly recently, developing hand in hand with better-defined regulation. Here, BlockFills CEO Nick Hammer discusses the reasons for crypto’s increasing institutional usage and some of the latest products responding to that demand.
What trends are you seeing now in the digital asset space?
We’ve been seeing increased involvement from institutional players in this space such as hedge funds, family offices and asset managers, which underscores the growing credibility and maturity of the digital asset space. Institutional activity brings significant capital, greater liquidity and stability to this market. It also drives mainstream acceptance and necessary regulatory clarity.
To that end, governments and regulators around the world are developing more defined frameworks and focusing on investor protection. This helps build trust and ensures compliance in various jurisdictions. This has also been helpful for us as we navigate the global regulatory landscape and launch offices in South America and the Middle East. BlockFills also has a London-based affiliate, Basis Capital Markets UK Ltd, which is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The move towards regulatory certainty has been beneficial for the major players in this space.
DeFi also continues to grow, offering decentralized alternatives to traditional financial products like lending, borrowing and trading. This enables greater financial inclusion, efficiency and transparency. Many central banks are also exploring or developing their own digital currencies in response to the rise of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. This could impact the future of money by creating a more digitized financial ecosystem.
Finally, we are also seeing a rise in the use of stablecoins. Stripe introduced a new payment option allowing customers to pay U.S. businesses in the USDC stablecoin, and this growing trend is reshaping how assets are traded and stored.
Why have we seen more institutional adoption of crypto?
There’s been a lot of movement from regulators to provide institutional traders more confidence when accessing the digital asset space. The U.S. has adopted a strategic Bitcoin Reserve policy at both the federal and some state levels, the SEC and CFTC have created a joint crypto regulation advisory committee and several crypto ETFs have been approved, with more, including Bitwise’s application for an XRP ETF, under consideration.
We have also seen the development of institutional custody solutions for crypto, which builds further confidence in the digital asset space. BlockFills has partnered with leading players that have invested heavily in custody solutions, insurance and regulatory compliance. These are only a few of the steps we take to safeguard assets against hacking and theft, since long-term sustainability is important to us.
