Will the economic impacts of the coronavirus leave people flocking to cryptocurrencies as a safe haven?
In today’s crypto market discussion, Cointelegraph is joined by crypto analyst Naeem Aslam, and the CEO of Tokenmetrics Ian Balina to discuss the impact of the coronavirus on the cryptocurrency markets.
Naeem Aslam is skeptical of Bitcoin’s purported ‘safe haven’ status, emphasizing that Bitcoin is a haven from central bank monetary policy, and not infectious diseases:
“I think when we talk about Bitcoin as a safe haven asset, we’re really talking about in relation to central banks and their monetary policies. Right now, we don’t have that fear in the market right now. The fear in the market is about influence of coronavirus … when we have something going wrong with the monetary policy, then, yes, we could see the momentum coming in because obviously Bitcoin the entire fundamentals base against the traditional monetary policy that the central banks are running.”
Ian Balina rejected the suggestion that crypto and coronavirus are correlated, stating:
“We personally don’t invest or trade on specific events … the coronavirus has not shown to be correlated analysis with Bitcoin or crypto in general. So because Bitcoin is a global asset class with numerous global events happening in tandem and it’s very hard to pinpoint one particular event as being the catalyst, I think perhaps indirectly the equities markets having a huge selloff where over 1.7 trillion dollars was lost in a few days and I think crypto could be really just playing off of that.”
The pair also share their long-term outlooks for the crypto markets, the probable impact of the upcoming halving, and whether Ethereum will surpass Bitcoin by market cap in the next ten years. Don’t miss it!
Liechtenstein Regulators Approve Ethereum-Based Real Estate Fund
The AARGOS Global Real Estate Fund was approved as an alternative investment fund (AIF) by Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority (FMA), the company announced. The fund provides exposure to a global real estate portfolio through AARGO security tokens – built on the ethereum blockchain – with each token representing one share in the fund.
The fund was created by Ahead Wealth Solutions, a financial services provider based in the nation’s capital Vaduz, in collaboration with Bank Frick and blockchain technology provider Token Factory.
AARGO tokens have been designed to ensure only legally-compliant transactions can be executed, Token Factory said in a blog post at the beginning of the week. In other words, only investors who have completed the requisite KYC/AML forms can actually hold the token.
The fund’s tokenization will also create «greater efficiency and a higher degree of automation in the transmission process,»said Bank Frick head of fund and capital markets Raphael Haldner in a statement.
Speaking to CoinDesk, Bastiaan Don, Token Factory’s managing director, said working on a public blockchain also presented opportunities for the financial sector. Funds are protected from manipulation by a centralized entity, and being on the ERC-20 token standard means the company can readily integrate with a «growing decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem,» he said.
«You could easily integrate with, for example, lending applications, so you can get some liquidity out of your tokenized assets,» he said. Private or permissioned blockchains might have some advantages in the short-term, he said, but «people will realize that they are missing out on all the fun and great applications that are built on public blockchains.»
AIFs are EU-regulated financial vehicles that raise capital from investors and invest these funds with the purpose of making favorable returns. Although Liechtenstein is not an EU country, its businesses can operate within the single market because it complies with the bloc’s financial regulation.
The Liechtenstein government has previously said it would avoid «excessive» blockchain regulation and the FMA has previously approved a plan for offering tokenized public offerings for retail investors. Approval by the regulator means the AARGO fund can now begin onboarding assets and promoting itself to investors.
