Anthony Scaramucci, CEO of Skybridge Capital, a multi-asset class investment firm, says he thinks the institutional investment boom in cryptocurrencies has been greatly exaggerated. In an interview given to Bloomberg last week, Scaramucci stated that most institutions are still not interested in cryptocurrency as an investment and that only 10% are actively investing in crypto.
Anthony Scaramucci, CEO of Skybridge Capital, thinks there is still a long way until bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are embraced by institutional investors. In an interview offered to Bloomberg, Scaramucci stated that, according to his experience, only 10% of the institutional world is actively investing in cryptocurrency. While this may be a minority, according to Scaramucci, it’s a minority that has some impact. The Skybridge Capital founder says the situation feels like a “feeding frenzy.”
The investor stated:
The institutions are not there. Anybody who’s telling you there’s institutional adoption into this space is not being totally honest – or they’re seeing something that I’m not seeing.
This line of thinking holds that the whole cryptocurrency bull market has been pushed mostly by retail investors and that when institutions really do enter the crypto space, they will give it a massive boost. However, instruments like ETFs will play a major role in achieving this goal.
Decentralized finance has been one of the big topics that have driven the cryptocurrency market this year. The ability to transact and access financial services without a middleman is a key feature of the sector. Scaramucci thinks this might attract more institutions into the space in the long run.
But this being as it may, institutions still have reasons to be wary of investing in cryptocurrencies. Some maintain there is no clear regulation in the sector, something that has been criticized by many actors that are currently facing lawsuits in crypto-related cases, like Ripple. This month, Coinbase, one of the leading U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchanges, was stopped in its tracks by the SEC when it intended to launch a crypto-based lending product. The latest Chinese crypto ban also affects the perception that investors have of these instruments.
In any case, there has been an increase in attention to cryptocurrency from big institutional firms like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Fidelity, among others, that have started offering crypto services to their customers.
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