Finance giant State Street sees falling demand for cryptocurrencies from institutional investors

Investment management firm State Street says institutional clients are not being deterred from investing in crypto assets despite falling prices. “There is a belief that the asset class is here to stay“said a State Street executive.

State Street on Institutional Demand for Cryptocurrencies

State Street, a leading investment management firm, is seeing steady institutional demand for cryptocurrencies, despite market declines, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday.

State Street Digital chief product officer Irfan Ahmad said the banking giant’s institutional clients are still interested in cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology. He was quoted as saying:

In the period of June and July when things really warmed up in terms of activity, we saw institutional clients not necessarily doubling their investments, but they weren’t really deterred from placing strategic bets on the asset class itself.

“What emerges from all of this is that, I think, there is a belief that the asset class is here to stay“, underlined the leader.

State Street operates in more than 100 geographic markets worldwide and employs approximately 40,000 people. As of June 30, the financial services giant had $38.2 trillion in assets in custody and/or administration and $3.5 trillion in assets under management.

The company’s digital arm, State Street Digital, provides solutions for a range of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, digital currency and central bank digital currencies (CBDC), according to its website.

Ahmad noted that a number of large investment firms, such as Goldman Sachs, have started offering crypto products and are likely to make further strides in the crypto space. In April, Goldman Sachs offered its first loan secured by bitcoins.

The world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock, launched a private bitcoin trust in August. “Despite the sharp decline in the digital asset market, we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients“, said the company.

The State Street executive added that institutional clients have been asking to launch crypto products, stating:

Certainly our customers have spoken to us in a more pragmatic way about how they could launch products, or what we could do in the future to help them support the launch of those products.

In July last year, State Street announced the expansion of its cryptocurrency service, citing soaring demand for traditional funds.

The scholarships of cryptocurrencies are also seeing growing demand from institutional investors. Bitstamp’s CEO said in August that his exchange is seeing a “massive interest in cryptocurrencies” from institutional clients. In June, Binance launched a new platform for VIP and institutional crypto investors to increase support for institutional clients.