Institutional Adoption of DeFi is ‘Many Years Away,’ Says BlackRock Executive

Joseph Chalom – BlackRock’s head of strategic partnerships – thinks the current regulatory environment is not quite welcoming for leading institutional investors to participate in Decentralized Finance.

He predicted that crypto firms like Coinbase could play a vital role in such a transition in the future, acting as a bridge between DeFi and traditional finance.

• Chalom believes that the participation of major institutional investors in DeFi is still “many, many, many years away.”

“Not that I’m pessimistic — I just live in a highly regulated space, and so do our clients.” 

• He said a potential adoption could be fueled by leading cryptocurrency organizations, such as the US-based exchange Coinbase. The latter provides institutional-grade wallets, which could bind investors from traditional and decentralized finance.
• BlackRock has recently splashed the waters of the crypto industry by filing with the SEC to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF in the States. Given its highly successful rate with the Commission so far, the market reacted positively to the news.
• Bitcoin and most alternative coins have charted significant gains, whereas the global market capitalization surpassed $1.2 trillion (CoinGecko data).
• It is worth mentioning that the world’s largest asset manager intends to rely on Coinbase to serve as a crypto custodian should the SEC greenlight the product.
• BlackRock’s initiative has inspired other financial giants to resubmit their filings for a Spot BTC ETF in America. Such examples are Invesco, WisdomTree, and Valkyrie.