Vikram Pandit, the former CEO of Citigroup Inc., recently stated that all major financial firms will consider investing in crypto in the next three years. Pandit, who is the chair of the Oregon Group, shared his opinion during an interview by Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Singapore Fintech Festival.
Pandit Is A Long Time Proponent Of Crypto
Pandit is a long-time proponent of cryptocurrency. He is one of the popular investors within the crypto space. One of his most famous investments in the crypto space is his Coinbase investment, which is one of the largest crypto exchanges globally.
According to him, the introduction of digital assets will be an upgrade to the financial system, which is currently paper-based. He believes doing so will help to make the process of making transfers more efficient.
Increased Interest In Crypto From Financial Firms
Numerous financial institutions have already shown a growing interest in crypto. One of the most recent is the Common Bank of Australia, which recently announced it would offer crypto trading services to its customers.
Another major bank that has begun to make inroads into the cryptocurrency space is Bank of America, one of the largest banks in the US. The bank announced, on October 4, 2021, that it had launched a digital asset. In its announcement, BofA noted that “Digital assets represent a $2 trillion+ market value with 200 million+ users.” It stated that this space had the potential to transform every sector while boosting efficiency, and reducing friction during transactions.
Even nations have taken an interest in crypto. For instance, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender, alongside USD. Another nation that is taking cryptocurrency seriously is Nigeria. Crypto trading became so popular in Nigeria that the country’s central bank banned the practice. Recently, the nation announced the launch of the digital Naira, a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
During his Bloomberg interview, Pandit stated that he hoped central banks globally would see the benefits of CBDCs and adopt them. He noted that the current system was cumbersome and came with a lot of “deadweight” costs when moving money around the world.
Rising Price Of Bitcoin
The Bloomberg interview comes amidst the rising price of Bitcoin. On Tuesday, BTC hit a new all-time high of over $68,000. ETH, the second biggest coin by market cap, was not far behind, with its price surging to over $4,800. While it is hard to pinpoint the short-term spike in price to any event, many analysts believe the crypto market rally will continue for the next few weeks.
Lingering Criticism
Despite growing significantly over a decade since its launch. Many lawmakers and regulators continue to criticize the crypto space due to a lack of regulation and investor protection. This was quite evident recently when the Squid Game scam coin saw its market cap rise to over $174 million, and then quickly drop to almost zero. However, these are challenges that can be overcome by creating proper regulation and educating the masses.
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