As reported last week by financial news outlet FNLondon, New-York based asset manager WisdomTree, who manages approx. $64Billion USD in financial assets globally, is planning to launch a regulated stablecoin in the United States. WisdomTree is intending to obtain approval by the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The organization told FNLondon that they are “rushing to launch a regulated cryptocurrency in the U.S. to get ahead of industry giants like BlackRock, State Street and Fidelity Investments in the digital currency space.” The proposed stablecoin will be composed by a basket of assets such as fiat, gold and government debt.
Though it appears that no formal proposals have yet to be filed with the SEC, this recent news may be foreshadowing more top US-based asset managers vying for dominance in the crypto sector.
Given that WisdomTree is one of the largest ETF providers in the world, many have begun to wonder whether the company will seek to launch a crypto ETF in the near future as well. Though this is purely speculative at this point, and would require regulator’s approval, the asset manager has said that this could be “a natural extension of its ETF business.” This report follows another recent announcement that WisdomTree invested in a blockchain startup called Securrency Inc. According to WisdomTree, they are investing in such infrastructure projects due to the belief that an ETF can be more efficiently managed on a blockchain platform. Additionally, in December 2019, WisdomTree also announced the launch of a physically backed Bitcoin exchange-traded product.
Although it is not yet certain what institutional crypto products may emerge in the near future, the fact that leading asset managers such as WisdomTree are continuing to devote significant resources to the digital asset space is positive momentum for the industry as a whole. There seems to be a lot more interest among large asset managers and as major players in the traditional finance ecosystem push to launch crypto products and invest in building out the infrastructure for more efficient digital asset markets, we can expect to see the sector to continue to evolve with increasing validation.
