Nasdaq and Morgan Stanley Move to Research Crypto Space

TL;DR

Traditional banks and financial institutions have been mostly skeptical and unsupportive of the crypto industry ever since digital currencies first appeared. However, a decade has passed since Bitcoin was announced, and a lot of these banks are seemingly changing their minds about this technology.

Nasdaq plans to use its technology to bring more security to the crypto space

While there are many of them that are still unfriendly towards digital currencies, some are trying to find a way to enter the space on their own terms. Two such institutions are multinational investment bank called Morgan Stanley, and the second-largest stock exchange, Nasdaq.

Morgan Stanley has dedicated its recent efforts to researching Bitcoin’s future, as well as its positive implications. As for Nasdaq, its recently published paper stated that the company has been developing mechanisms for supervising securities, markets, and different currencies for decades. Now, they plan to research ways to apply such mechanisms on digital currencies and eliminate scams and manipulation.

The company’s technology for market surveillance (SMARTS) already has a license to cover exchanges such as Gemini. In addition, numerous crypto-related firms are approaching Nasdaq, hoping to partner up and make use of their service. While these partnership suggestions started as far back as two years ago, they only increased as the crypto space started attracting more attention. Nasdaq states that they are now being approached almost on a weekly basis.

Morgan Stanley’s report on crypto

For a lot of crypto enthusiasts, it is refreshing to see such a change in attitude towards cryptocurrencies. Especially after many banks such as J.P. Morgan expressed a lot of unfriendliness over the years.

Morgan Stanley, on the other hand, also issued a new report, stating that institutions are growing more and more interested in the crypto space. The report is a result of research that includes the last six months of Bitcoin behavior, and it emphasizes the thesis of a rapidly morphing market.

This report defines BTC as digital cash and notes that investors into this cryptocurrency are extremely confident in it. It also talks about BTC providing solutions for various issues that are troubling the financial system, and it even talks about an entirely new payment system and a new investment class for institutional investors.

The rapidly morphing thesis has had to evolve to include different issues such as hard forks, hacking attacks, a permanent ledger that records transactions, additional technologies that cost less than Bitcoin itself, and more.

Finally, the report touched upon a topic that has already seen a lot of discussions recently — stablecoins. Stablecoins grew big due to the fact that a lot of exchanges still do not accept fiat currencies. As a result, a lot of stablecoins had to appear, and one of them, Tether (USDT), demonstrated dangers behind the supposedly stable and backed cryptocurrencies.

However, despite the USDT controversy, stablecoins remain a very useful aspect of the crypto market, and an excellent idea, which is why a lot of new ones appeared recently.