Despite crypto values declining, big banks and tech-companies have increased their investment in blockchain technology and cryptos. From September 2021 to June 2022, 40 major companies invested about $6 billion in blockchain start-ups. The biggest spender was Alphabet ($1.5 billion) followed by BlackRock ($1.2 billion), Morgan Stanley ($1.1 billion), Samsung ($979 million), Goldman Sachs , BNY Mellon and PayPal, all $700 million each.
61 banks have now invested at least once in the crypto and blockchain space. They are investing in a variety of areas, from blockchain development platforms and marketplaces to market intelligence services and decentralized applications. A major portion of these investments are going toward custodial solutions, asset management and trading. Banks realise that their customers want to be able to invest in crypto.
These investments show that the banking sector is committing more and more to developing decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, because DeFi banking is cheaper, faster and more secure than traditional banking. Banks know, they must adapt to blockchain developments otherwise they will quickly get left behind.
With all this money being invested by the big banks and tech-companies in blockchain technology and crypto it’s quite difficult to envision a financial market that does not evolve to include crypto in a big way.
The revolution is on-going, regardless of the current price of Bitcoin and all other crypto-currencies.
Sven Franssen