FIDELITY INTERNATIONAL
to most consumers . Perhaps in 15 years ’ time , the same will be said of digital assets .
“ There is a bit of a change in the philosophy of how to approach investment solutions in digital assets ,” Froehlich continues . “ We need to be a little bit more experimental and push for innovation . This is not straightforward for traditional asset managers because it ' s a different process to traditional asset classes .”
In the next couple of years , we should expect to see a rebound in the crypto market after a difficult patch – but there will also be a flurry of new applications and usecases for digital assets , from sustainability to carbon credits and food safety . It will take time for us to identify which trends are worth capitalising on but it will be worth it because there is room for significant improvement and new business models , Froehlich says .
There will also need to be a conversation about how distributed ledger technology is implemented – whether it ’ s a way to provide a more convenient and cheaper access to your fund , or whether it ’ s the start of integrating new types of assets through tokenisation .
“ I think it ' s a golden era for institutional investors to move into the digital assets space because what this washout has done last year was not just to remove bad actors , but also to recognise that there were a lot of companies that just didn ' t know what they were doing or didn ’ t have the means to cope with hyper-growth . I see the opportunity for established , highly licenced operators like Fidelity to position themselves in this market and help shape it in a way that make it more suitable for institutional and retail investors .”