Chris George, Senior VP of Product at Somo argues that Crypto needs to improve its scalability to be taken seriously
Cryptocurrencies are no longer the exclusive domain of high risk financiers or tech Bitcoin jockeys, willing to ride a niche and volatile asset for good or ill. Today, neobank and mainstream banking apps alike offer crypto banking, helping them trade in Bitcoin or Ethereum from as little as one dollar(https://www.revolut.com/crypto/).
Indeed, in September 2022, Finbold reported that British citizens had invested nearly £32bn in cryptocurrencies, and additional research from HMRC would have it that one in 10 UK adults has bought crypto, double the number from the previous year.
But even given the legitimacy lent to crypto by the fact that now 50% of UK banks allow customers to interact with these currencies as well as other digital assets, how can the asset management industry turn it into a significant – and mainstream – asset, particularly in today’s turbulent economic climate? With the collapse of FTX, this must be taken into serious consideration. FTX was sold as being a safe and stable way to trade digital currency, alas this has not been the case. It turns out Sam Bankman-Fried seriously over-promised and dramatically under-delivered, gambling away customer assets and ultimately prioritising fraud and malpractice.
First, we need to acknowledge that not all crypto is created equal. Some, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, do function as a currency, are limited in volume and therefore can increase and (as 2022 amply showed) decrease in value. But other blockchain-based crypto doesn’t behave like what most people commonly accept as currency at all.
For there to be significant uptake in crypto as an asset, there is going to have to be a far broader and deeper understanding of what it is and what it can do. As Christophe Diserens, chief compliance officer at SwissBorg has suggested: “Value and useability are going to be key. Metcalfe’s Law has been used to value tech and internet stocks so why not crypto?”. That value took a bit of a beating during the recent sell-off and crypto’s perceived volatility will need to be addressed if it is to achieve scale. Because that’s what it’s going to need if it’s ever going to be considered as a legitimate global payment alternative in the future.
The role of The Merge
Not the latest B-movie, sci-fi flick, The Merge in September 2022 saw the world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, move from a ‘proof of work’ to a ‘proof of stake’ protocol. This was nothing short of seismic.
Proof of work is how the vast majority of crypto has been mined to date. People solving complex equations to validate transactions (the ‘work’) uses masses of computer processing energy, accounting for a significant slice of the world’s electricity consumption. In today’s climate (in both senses of the word), that’s just not on.
Proof of stake, on the other hand, relies on far fewer ‘miners’, fewer computers and less energy as a result. This so-called ‘Merge’ is not only expected to reduce worldwide energy consumption by 0.2%, but also boost the crypto economy as a whole, creating more opportunities for investors and allow developers to build more products and applications on Ethereum. Ultimately, it could be what drives the decentralised internet of blockchain, crypto and NFT – Web3 – mainstream.
What does this mean in the ‘real’ world? This could present a real opportunity for the financial services sector as a whole. It will change the way it operates, speeding up transactions, creating new business models and generally just making the whole thing a more efficient way of working. Fully cashless payments for business would be a real boon, given the costs and potential losses involved in transacting in cash. Digitisation also makes transacting an altogether more intuitive experience.
One thing crypto and its associated technologies and solutions needs to be wary of is becoming a solution in search of a problem. For a truly mainstream breakthrough, the industry needs to make sure it’s bringing the consumer along on the journey. For end users to be truly confident in crypto, it has to benefit from the same levels of governance and regulation that cover the rest of the financial services industry, building and maintaining consumer confidence will be extremely important as trust levels have been shaken by the recent lack of solid administration and “irresponsible lending practices” leading to the FTX implosion . It has to be simple to transact, but with all the protections that investors have come to expect. It can’t afford to take them on another rollercoaster ride like 2022’s.
While 50% of the UK’s banks may be getting on board with crypto to some degree, there is still a wide open ocean of opportunity for asset management players to realise value for themselves and their clients. It will involve some reshaping and more investment in digitisation to manage the assets of the future, whatever they may be.
Somo, part of the CI&T family, will be publishing a report titled ‘Assessing the Crypto Conundrum: Will cryptocurrency ever be a significant trading asset and how can digitalisation shape its future?’ in 2023.