As the buzz around bitcoin (BTC) has faded, institutional investors and portfolio managers have begun to view cryptocurrency as a “serious market” to invest insays Fred Pye, CEO of 3iQ, Canada’s first issuer of bitcoin funds.
In an interview with Cointelegraph during Bitcoin 2023, Pye discussed the advanced Canadian regulation for cryptocurrency trading and how it has attracted investors to the digital asset market.
According to Pye, heFund managers and institutional investors managing diversified asset portfolios are seeking alternative investment strategies amid a global inflationary environment and macroeconomic challenges..
“FOMO on Bitcoin is gone. It’s all moved to AI [inteligencia artificial]. So now the right institutions and portfolio managers, the people who are responsible for managing diversified portfolios, are starting to take a look at bitcoin as a serious market.”
It’s not just about maximizing profits, says Pye. For institutional investors, cryptocurrency use cases will be a growing trend in the coming years. “The theme for 2024 and beyond is definitely use cases. So, we’ve got this beautiful technology, now let’s put that beautiful technology to work,” he stated.
Regulatory challenges to institutional adoption have been around for a while, but Canada has notably taken the lead in launching crypto ETFs in North Americagiven the reservations of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission towards the crypto space.
ETF refers to the exchange traded fund which is a portfolio of assets whose shares are traded on a stock market. They mix the features and potential benefits of mutual funds, stocks, and bonds.
Canadian regulators have approved several cryptocurrency ETFs in recent yearsincluding bitcoin and Ether (ETH) products from 3iQ, Purpose Investments and Evolve Funds Group, drawing millions of dollars into their crypto products.
“They have never been underpriced,” Pye says of managing regulated digital asset ETFs in Canada, adding that “there is no difference between running a bitcoin ETF and a gold ETF. We track the bitcoin price identically. They are low commissions and it works. […] We can encryptedly track where the bitcoin came from, so we only buy clean bitcoin. And I think these are all characteristics that people are concerned about.”
Canada’s latest initiative towards digital assets builds on a public consultation on a central bank digital currency (CBDC)., for its acronym in English), in which the local monetary authority asks what characteristics the citizens of the country want included in a possible digital Canadian dollar. The results of the Canadian consultation are expected to be published later this year.
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