IDEG Asset Management Limited (IDEG), a professional digital asset manager, held its flagship Institutional Digital Assets Summit 2022 to share valuable insights on the digital assets market. Topics covered include the trends, opportunities and challenges that institutional investors are looking at and strategies to navigate the shifting crypto landscape.

Themed “Seize the Times“, the summit was hosted over two days from 26 to 27 May 2022 at Fairmont Singapore. Reflecting the summit’s thematic focus, speakers highlighted the changing nature of the digital asset ecosystem, and how it was yielding opportunities despite the risks. Better regulation and stronger institutional support have boosted adoption of digital assets, speakers said.

The summit received over 200 participants, including industry leaders and experts from crypto-native firms, traditional financial institutions and regulatory bodies. Across the two days, guest speakers from industry leaders, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), PWC, BlockFI, Fireblocks and COINBASE, discussed the most pressing issues and megatrends shaping the crypto world today—from Web 3.0 to NFTs, the metaverse to De-Fi—as well as the upcoming big moves impacting institutional investors.

Raymond Yuan, Chairman of CTH Group, the supporting group of IDEG, said: “Web 3.0 is inevitable. It is the next Internet era that is creating a completely new economic paradigm. We will witness true globalization enabled through decentralization, rules-based permissionless governance models, as well as new models such as ‘X-to-earn‘ that will redefine people’s jobs. While we are seeing increased investments in this space, there remain unanswered questions on ‘what’s next?‘ for the road ahead. Our inaugural Institutional Digital Asset Summit 2022 aims to encourage dialogue on how institutions and Web 3.0 technology leaders can navigate, collaborate, and thrive in this brave new world.”

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The MAS shared during a panel discussion that the crypto ecosystem is a potentially transformative technology. It enables high-value assets to be fractionalized and this can unlock new economic value, enhance financial inclusion, and enable more seamless and efficient financial services. The MAS added that its approach is to be adaptive, continually evolving and consultative as this is a fast-moving space.

On the topic of crypto becoming mainstream, Rishi Ramchandani, Head of APAC at BlockFI, opined, “Crypto is now in a validated state, and our team is working hard to reduce the friction to encourage institutional partners to move into the crypto space.”

Stephen Richardson, Head of APAC at Fireblocks, added, “We have noticed that the market is adopting a more cautious take on upcoming crypto projects and the infrastructure, as compared with past deals where there was more enthusiasm over the rapid crypto expansion. We see investors doing more homework and due diligence, in preparation for a tough market ahead.”

Wilson Cheng, APAC Lead in Institutional Sales at COINBASE, shared his views on digital asset adoption in the traditional financial world. He opined, “while it is exciting to see so many financial institutions recognising crypto as a real asset class, we anticipate that more time will be needed to educate the broader market about the crypto universe.”

David Shin, Head of Global Adoption at Klayton, also opined on the role that NFTs will play in the coming years: “We see Web 3.0 to be driving a lot of the NFT adoption in the next five years. Interestingly, the second-level adoption of NFTs is becoming more functional and dynamic, and there are vast opportunities for us to bring outside data in, to the creation of NFTs, and we believe this will ultimately drive change in this industry.”

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To wrap up the two-day summit, Kevin Loo, Head of Investment Insights and Managing Director at IDEG, said, “Despite the uncertainty in the digital asset markets, the market sees both short-term and long-term opportunities emerging. Further, this cycle is different from past crypto winters. With more institutional involvement compared to 2018, the ‘reaction function’ for recovery will be stronger, meaning digital asset recovery will be quicker than we have experienced in prior cycles. As a professional assets manager, we continue our mission of growing the market with best-in-class compliance and value-add diversification strategies and services. This event firmly showcases IDEG’s corporate reach and influence across digital asset verticals and horizontal services, an indication of the strong advocacy of institutional standards and growth for the long term.”