The Intrinsic Value of Crypto

Hu Liang is co-founder and CEO at Omniex, an institutional trading platform for crypto assets, and a former senior vice president of State Street.

Now, with the eventful year of 2018 almost behind us, I've spent some time thinking about what has transpired and whether the intrinsic value of crypto has materially changed for institutional investors.

I've always maintained the true intrinsic value of crypto is its ability to create decentralized networks that ultimately lead to new forms of businesses.

The financial use case, beyond that of blockchain technology, is that of crypto as a new and standalone asset class in a multi-asset class portfolio, be it passive or active.

Now is when we really need to focus on delivering on the true intrinsic value of crypto and blockchain, turning away from undue speculation and creating real use cases and value networks.

What does fixing it mean? As stated earlier, I don't believe the true intrinsic value of crypto has changed.

The first is moving beyond retail to create a crypto ecosystem that empowers institutional investors to participate in the crypto and blockchain revolution.

Let's not forget that crypto is the only asset class in history that didn't start from the institutional front, and as a retail-first phenomenon we've been left with an ecosystem devoid of institutional infrastructure.

Despite the setback of the ICO boom, as true innovations succeeds in garnering wider adoption, the true intrinsic value of crypto will be realized - and that moment will be a great one.

For now, at Omniex, our goal for 2019 is to continue building a sustainable ecosystem for institutions to easily adopt crypto as a new asset class.