ALFI: Predicting the future of cryptocurrencies 04 May 2018London Reporter: Jenna Lomax
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“Everything that can be cryptosised will be in the future”, predicted the CEO of Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) Nasir Zubairi at this year’s ALFI London Conference on a panel discussing crypto currencies and their relevance to asset management.
Zubairi further commented that there has been an intense focus of bitcoin in the ISO market recently, and claimed at the moment, 200 to 250 hedge funds are in someway involved in cryptocurrencies within Europe, but Luxembourg does not yet have that same level of hedge funds involved in the market.
He also stated that Europe is not as advanced as the US and Asia in this space, though in the future he predicted there will be “space to develop”.
He described the slowness of uptake in Luxembourg and the rest of Europe to a “chicken and egg issue”, stating that there is currently a “lack of regulation combined with frightened banks”.
However, he claimed that this could change as soon as regulators give their first guidance on bitcoin, being that bitcoin is, he said, “barely two years old”.
He added: “Things should be moving to the mainstream in asset management. If we’re patient, a lot [of rules for bitcoin] will fall into the regulations we’re going to have in the future.”
In the following panel, another panellist said that technology is bringing easier access to data, but questioned if it was emerging risks.
The panellist was concerned if firms are actually using their application programming interfaces (APIs) effectively. He said: “Are you [asset management firms and financial services] organising yourself towards using API?”
Meanwhile, another speaker predicted that by 2025, investor protection lines of defence through technology will be where they need to be, but he said this would depend on domiciles in data protection and investor protection.
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