Almost 50% of the financial experts surveyed believe that over the next year Bitcoin (BTC) will surpass the popular stock market index, the S&P 500. And while many still shun cryptocurrencies, most believe there will be a global digital currency in the next decade.
Crypto volatility does not kill the crypto industry in the eyes of many financial professionals, since, according to the latter survey conducted by an analytical company Chainalysis 48% of these professionals believe that in the next 12 months, BTC will become the investment class with the highest growth rate - surpassing even the S&P 500, which tracks the performance of the shares of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
Which of the following metrics will have the fastest growth over the next 12 months: Bitcoin, S&P 500, Bloomberg Barclays Bond Index, or House Price Index?
In September 2019, Chainalysis surveyed finance professionals working for banks, credit unions, financial service providers, and regulators and collected a total of 350 responses. Aside from their aforementioned conclusion, they found that simply recognizing the value of crypto is not enough, as over 78% of respondents said that less than half of their retail customers transact with cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, 28% of percent said that between 1% and 10% of their clients transact with cryptocurrencies, and for one third this percentage is zero. In addition, 13,5% of respondents also said they did not know if any of their customers had purchased cryptocurrency.
However, 70% of all respondents surveyed believe that in the next 5 or 10 years there will be a global digital currency controlled by the United States (37,2%) or China (21,2%), which analysts consider logical as the first to control the global reserve currency, and the latter is increasingly interested in blockchain. However, 29,9% of respondents believe that the global digital currency will be decentralized.
If we had a global digital currency in the next 5-10 years, who, in your opinion, is more likely to control it?
Michael Gronager, co-founder and CEO of Chainalysis, said that while blockchain can really help professionals in the financial industry to monitor transactions, detect criminal activity, mitigate risk, increase transparency and offer new opportunities for their clients, they don't want to use it. “Many finance professionals understand that crypto represents a huge opportunity,” he said, “but institutions are hesitant to enter the market because of the perceived risk, and some do not even realize the exposure to crypto.”
Regarding reason number one, this reluctance to work more with crypto:
- 39% of respondents said that “the inability to control illegal activities caused by cryptocurrency”
- 25,1% said market opportunities are not large enough
- 17,9% noted lack of support from the executive branch
- 17,9% indicated inability to comply with the rules.
Analysts believe that this is "more of a problem of education than of opportunity" in the financial industry.
At the same time, as for the motivating factors associated with crypto, professionals answered:
Chainalysis says that it is even possible that institutions have a demand, but they are not aware of it, given that the earlier interview YouGov , a London-based international research group of data and analytics, showed that 81% of Americans surveyed knew about at least one cryptography, that 18% of Americans bought at least one type of cryptographic protection, while in millennials this number reaches 35%.
“Financial institutions are a critical component to the cryptocurrency ecosystem,” said Jonathan Levine, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Chainalysis, adding that the company’s own “belief in the potential of cryptocurrencies is borne out by the number of financial professionals who are considering Bitcoin.” as a fast growing asset class and envision a global digital currency in the near future. ”
At the time of writing (9:45 UTC), BTC is trading at $ 8. It has dropped 754% in the last 1,2 hours and 24% in the last week.
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