Nexo and Amber Group executives claim 'exponential' growth in crypto institutional investment

cointelegraph.com:

During the 8th edition of the Blockchain Africa Conference 2022, Cointelegraph's Editor-in-Chief Kristina Lucrezia Cornèr virtually moderated a panel titled "Cryptocurrency Institutional Investment: Increasing Returns and Improving Diversification." Panelists Kalin Metodiev, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Nexo, and Dimitrios Kavvathas, Chief Strategy Officer at Amber Group, focused on the opportunities that institutional investors perceive in the blockchain and crypto space, both in Africa and globally.

Nexo is a crypto borrowing and exchange platform that recently began offering crypto custodial services, products and lending services for institutional investors, in partnership with the crypto wing of Fidelity Investments called Fidelity Digital Assets. Crypto trading firm Amber Group recently secured a $200 million investment, which increased its valuation three-fold to $3 billion after big investment from Singaporean Temasek Holdings.

Both panelists spoke to their views on the current dynamics of institutional investment within the blockchain and crypto space and acknowledged its "exponential" growth in institutional onboarding. Metodiev stated that institutional investors, however, may claim that the crypto market is "still too volatile," making it challenging for them to determine the overall effect of crypto in relation to other assets in a portfolio.

Kavvathas expressed that "we can do more" than just adding crypto as one more asset class for large liquidity provision institutions. He added that even though participation is increasing, it is "nowhere close to being meaningful" yet. Metodiev also highlighted the importance of the African market and the "number of potential users that is growing on a daily basis"