Strategists at one of the world’s largest wealth managers are issuing a warning to newbie crypto investors plunging into the record rally: You could still lose all your money.
Between regulatory threats and central bank-issued competitors, there’s nothing stopping a wipeout in big-name digital currencies eventually, according to UBS Global Wealth Management,
The firm issued this warning to its investors citing regulatory actions or if a better-designed version is launched to rival the existing ones.
“There is little in our view to stop a cryptocurrency’s price from going to zero when a better-designed version is launched or if regulatory changes stifle sentiment…..Netscape and Myspace are examples of network applications that enjoyed widespread popularity but eventually disappeared,” UBS strategist.
As Wall Street jumps on the Bitcoin rally like never before, the Swiss firm says prices may rise in the near term, but the industry faces existential risks over the long haul.
“There is little in our view to stop a cryptocurrency’s price from going to zero when a better designed version is launched or if regulatory changes stifle sentiment,” authors including Michael Bolliger, the chief investment officer for global emerging markets, said in a report Thursday.
“Netscape and Myspace are examples of network applications that enjoyed widespread popularity but eventually disappeared,” the strategists wrote in response to rising client interest.
Bitcoins, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency with a 66.5% market share saw its price rise above $40,000 during the week before falling 8.9% to close just above $37,000. Cryptocurrencies are very volatile assets and is viewed somewhat negatively by most regulators.
Recently, the US Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, recently spoke on why the U.S central bank had no reason to rush into central bank digital currencies. According to him;
Since we are the world’s reserve currency, we actually think we need to get this right, and we don’t feel an urge or need to be first,” he said. “We effectively already have a first-mover advantage, because we’re the reserve currency.”
Powell also revealed that stablecoins were of high-level priority.
“We’ve been very focused… on potential regulatory answers for global stablecoins, in particular,” said Powell in response to a question about CBDCs, or central bank digital currencies.
“So that’s been a high-level focus, and that will continue to be a high-level focus because they could become systemically important overnight and we don’t begin to have, you know, our arms around the potential risks and how to manage those risks, and the public will expect we do and has every right to expect that… It’s a very high priority.”
According to a report by Google, Nigeria has the highest interest in Bitcoin globally. The report claims Nigeria emerged the first amongst other countries around the world in Bitcoin searches on Google. Delta State has the highest level of Bitcoin interests on a state level in Nigeria, followed by Ebonyi, Ekiti, Anambra, and Osun.
Surprisingly Nigeria’s business capital, Lagos misses out of the top 5 as regards Bitcoin level of interest in Google.
