Ep. 55. Unlocking Institutional Capital in Crypto

Sarah and Sara go through a run down of the latest crypto news including: Blackrock explore bitcoin, Block.one close a ‘strategic investment round’, and will there be Major League Baseball Crypto? We kick things off with Blackrock beginning to explore bitcoin. BlackRock has set up a group made up from different parts of the business to investigate cryptocurrencies and their underlying infrastructure to investigate how the $6.3 trillion asset manager can take advantage of the fast-growing cryptocurrency market. Then we move on to Block.one announcing on the 16th of July that Peter Thiel has invested in the company, along with other notable investors, Bitmain, Louis Bacon, and Alan Howard. Block.one has so much money now it’s hard not to wonder what they’re going to do with it. Next up Major League Baseball has announced that it is launching a crypto-based game that runs on the ethereum blockchain later this summer. Fans will be able to purchase avatars from baseball history. Those avatars can then be sold or traded, and users can earn rewards. Is this the tokenisation of trading cards and can Ethereum handle it? We move on to Coinbase getting the green light to list coins deemed securities. Coinbase Inc. said it got the green light from U.S. watchdogs to move forward with a trio of acquisitions that will allow it to become one of the first federally regulated venues for trading digital coins deemed to be securities. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority approved Coinbase’s purchase of Keystone Capital Corp., Venovate Marketplace Inc. and Digital Wealth LLC. And this week’s Tweet of the week is the controversial bit of news from Coinbase that they’re adding a host of new crypto assets to their platform. Simon hosted a panel at the Europa conference discussion institutional firms moving into crypto featuring: Lawrence Lundy Head of Research and Partnership at Outlier Ventures Obi Nwosu, CEO and Co-Founder of Coinfloor Claire Wells, Director of Legal & Business Affairs EMEA at Circle. The panel examines how institutional financing can help put a price limit on crypto and stabilise the space, but how in a crypto-to-crypto space there’s possibly no reason to have institutional money at all, and what’s holding asset managers back from entering the space. They also look at the value of the crypto asset market and how it can be utilised as a use case for blockchain. And how crypto can operate as a means for global financial inclusion. All this and more on this week's episode of Blockchain Insider. And if you enjoyed our tweet of the week why not send us your best tweets? See if you can get a shout out on the show! We hope you enjoy the show and, as ever, don't forget to subscribe! Want to join the conversation on all the topics discussed? Tweet the show @bchaininsider and if you really love the show, why not leave us a review on iTunes? This week's episode of Blockchain Insider was produced by Petrit Berisha and edited by Holly Blaxill. Special Guests: Claire Wells, Lawrence Lundy, and Obi Nwosu. Links: $6Tn Money Manager BlackRock in Bitcoin? Top Crypto Minds Comment | Cryptocoin Spy Block.one Closes Strategic Investment Round Led by Peter Thiel and Bitmain | Block.one MLB will release a crypto baseball game on the blockchain - The Verge Litecoin Foundation Acquires 9.9% of Bank in Payments Partnership - CoinDesk Coinbase Says It Won Approval for Trio of Acquisitions - Bloomberg Coinbase on Twitter: "Today we are announcing that we’re exploring the addition of the following assets to Coinbase: Cardano (ADA), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Zcash (ZEC) and 0x (ZRX). https://t.co/qoECyR0V1f"