In comparison with the current Bitcoin bull run (even though with a slight correction being seen at the moment), previous bullish markets were provoked by much less serious drivers, a crypto expert believes.
In an interview to Coindesk, the CEO of BCB, a financial platform focusing on crypto, Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, expressed his vision that the ‘crypto bubble’ in 2013 was caused by technocrats and dark web dwellers, in 2017 the BTC price was pushed up by the ICO craze.
However, this year, the ball is on the field of traditional VC firms that have got interested in the industry and are eagerly entering the market.
More institutions are joining in
Data shared by Landsberg-Sadie says that more and more institutional investors are stepping into the crypto area. In June, UK saw 9 large financial institutions that deal with OTC trading and banking enter the industry.
Apart from those, as per the expert, 32 other institutions also joined the club.
Apart from entering the crypto area themselves, institutions also spread their support towards numerous DLT initiatives to do with commodity trade and goods shipping. Crypto exchanges also start to tailor their services from retail customers to institutional investors.
Crypto exchanges change their tactics
Exchanges are also trying to become as compliant as possible and yield to regulators’ demands in order to attract institutional customers and their funds.
A good example is Binance – it is not only now integrating higher KYC standards but is also setting up a separate division (Binance US) in order to be compliant with US laws in the financial sphere and enter the North American market.
The biggest non-crypto platform that has entered the industry this year is Facebook with its Libra coin that has caused a negative reaction of many bankers and lawmakers in Europe, Japan and the US.
Libra coin is scheduled to be launched in 2020 and later this year Bakkt plans to launch Bitcoin futures as well and the crypto community is looking forward to that.