European Central Bank (ECB) leader, Christine Lagarde, is leading the campaign for a digital euro but doesn’t see the flagship crypto, Bitcoin, and other cryptos as ideal for payment.

The ECB leader acknowledged the gains of having blockchain technology in play, but was critical about Bitcoin and other cryptos, particularly on the bias that it’s too volatile to be used in making payments.

“The main risk lies in relying purely on technology and the flawed concept of there being no identifiable issuer or claim. This also means that users cannot rely on crypto-assets maintaining a stable value: they are highly volatile, illiquid, speculative, and so do not fulfill all the functions of money,” Lagarde said.

In this COVID-19 era, Lagarde has declared her support for the digitalization of the Euro, elaborating deeper on what a digital euro could do, such as providing its citizens unrestricted access to money that is backed by a central bank, and allowing the Euro geopolitical area to maintain its monetary status quo.

“It could be important in a range of future scenarios, from a decline in the use of cash to pre-empting the uptake of foreign digital currencies in the euro area. Issuing a digital euro might become necessary to ensure both continued access to central bank money and monetary sovereignty.

“A properly designed digital euro would create synergies with the payments industry and enable the private sector to build new businesses based on digital euro-related services,” Lagarde added.

What you should know

• Some weeks back, Christine Lagarde gave a strong indication that the ECB could create its cryptocurrency within a few years, in what would be a systematical change to the euro zone’s financial system.
• Lagarde hinted that it could take two to four years before the project begins, as it would address concerns over privacy, money laundering, and the technology involved.

BlackRock CEO and leader of the world’s biggest asset management firm, Larry Fink, recently revealed that the flagship crypto is on his company’s radar amid the rapid gains recorded by Bitcoin this year alone.

Speaking recently at the Council on Foreign Relations alongside Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England, Fink said, “Bitcoin has caught the attention and the imagination of many people. Still untested, pretty small relative to other markets.”

“Can it evolve into a global market? Possibly,” Fink added.

What you should know

• BlackRock is the world’s biggest asset manager with about $7.4 trillion in assets under management as of the end of Q4 2019.
• Its massive size allows it to do what no other asset management on planet earth can do.

Recall a few weeks ago, BlackRock top executive, Rick Rieder, gave reasons for his bias towards Bitcoin overtaking gold as the go-to store-of-wealth asset.

“Do I think it will take the place of gold to a large extent? Yeah, I do, because it’s so much more functional than passing a bar of gold around,” Rieder said.

Also, the BlackRock CIO of Fixed Income buttressed his bias on why Cryptos are here to stay, taking into account its role in payments among the world’s millennials:

“I think cryptocurrency is here to stay and I think it is durable and you’ve seen the central banks that have talked about digital currencies. I think digital currency and the receptivity, particularly millennials’ receptivity to technology and cryptocurrency is real. Digital payments systems are real, so I think Bitcoin is here to stay.”

However, the leading asset manager, BlackRock, doesn’t outrightly own any crypto yet. It is indirectly exposed to digital assets through MicroStrategy, a business intelligence company that has most of its savings in Bitcoin.

The world’s largest asset manager is the largest MicroStrategy shareholder, with a 15.2% stake in the firm.

Europe’s biggest crypto exchange, Kraken, recently revealed the favourite cryptos its high net worth clients choose to buy or invest in.

In its most recent Kraken’s Crypto Sentiment Survey, about 350 participants from the firm’s most active high-net-worth clients revealed their favourite Cryptos apart from Bitcoin.

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The high net worth clients most commonly picked crypto assets include Chainlink (LINK), Monero (XMR) Ethereum (ETH), Polkadot (DOT), and XRP.

In the DeFi space, they listed yearn. finance (YFI), Kava.io (KAVA), and Kyber Network (KNC) Uniswap (UNI).

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These high net worth individuals also disclosed their Bitcoin price target for 2021. Their responses suggest that the bullish trend prevailing at the crypto market is expected to remain, on the bias that their price target for Bitcoin in 2021 stands at $36,602.

“The median price target is $25,000 and the most commonly submitted target is $20,000. Approximately, 8% of respondents provided a price target greater-than-or-equal-to $100,000. Roughly 20% of respondents reported a price target greater-than-or-equal-to $50,000.”

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What you should know

Nairametrics revealed some weeks ago that U.S proprietary trading firms and venture capital companies are now in the buzz of buying cryptos amid the bullish trend playing out at the world’s fast-changing financial market.

• Jump Trading holds at least $75 million in digital assets and is the 8th largest holder of COMP (Compound) tokens, behind a16z and Polychain.
• Jump also holds KEEP (Keep Network), HXRO, NMR (Numeraire), OXT (Orchid), and MKR (Maker). Jump invested an undisclosed amount in Serum and owns 40m SRM (~$32m).
• Andreessen Horowitz, a popular American venture capital firm, owns amounts of the flagship crypto Bitcoin, Ethereum, Filecoin (FIL), Maker, Compound, Celo (CELO), Orchid, Arweave (AR), Keep Network, and Handshake (HNS).

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