Despite the falling price for cryptocurrency, which has only managed a slight recovery since experiencing the worst week of losses since 2011, not all institutional investors remain bearish on the digital asset.
Bitcoin & Co., which have seen prices decline from a near trillion dollar market capitalization to start the year, have attracted increasingly negative attention across the sphere of investment influence, with most proclaiming the most recent plummet for cryptocurrency as being the official nail in the coffin. However, for one former head of electronic trading at Goldman Sachs, the state of the crypto markets appear analogous to the early days of electronic equity trading–a relationship that he hopes will bring positive development for the industry over the next several years.
While many investors, enthusiasts and general supporters of both the technology and marketplace of cryptocurrency are finding scarce reasons to promote the digital asset class in light of the bearish year–and even more staggering losses to characterize the past month–Greg Tusar, former global head of electronic trading at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., is excited about the potential of the innovative currencies being traded on exchange.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg, Tusar outlined a connection between the current state of the crypto marketplace and what he witnessed in the initial years of electronic equity trading,
“It feels like being at the early days of trading equities electronically. It’s early stage, there’s a lot of opportunity to build great businesses and have impact.”
Tusar, who now serves as chief technology officer of Tagomi Holdings after spending 13 years with Goldman, continued,
“The current environment is challenging, for sure, but we think there’s a lot of longer-term demand for digital assets and helping clients understand the transformative impact of crypto and blockchain.”
Tagomi Holdings, which Tusar helped co-found, is a company which claims to be the first liver electronic brokerage offering prime services. Compared to standard exchange services, which offer limited resources for investors, Tagomi aims to empower the individual investors by providing increased liquidity across multiple exchanges, in addition to improved transparency for customers in relation to hedge funds and high net work traders that may be operating in the same space.
Tusar highlights a litany of problems with the current state of the crypto marketplace, focusing on the lack of services for investors looking to execute large orders, as well as finding suitable custody services for their coin holdings. As an example, Tusar makes the claim that an investor would be hard pressed to execute a $10 million BTC order on the typical exchange, which may not possess the liquidity or resources for handling such a trade.
Despite the crypto markets being at their lowest point in over a year, Tusar has an optimistic and eager outlook for the industry of digital assets, including the role his new company will play in the emerging space. Speaking on his investors, including Peter Thiel’s VC firm, who are backing a cryptocurrency exchange during a time when some analysts are calling for total collapse of the marketplace, Tusar says they are supportive and looking to cryptocurrency with a “long-term view.”
