The new study by the Economist Intelligence Unit also found that investors primarily viewed cryptocurrencies as capital appreciation and asset diversification.
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<li>Consumers are increasingly adopting cashless payment methods while governments are stepping up planning or piloting of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and companies are experimenting with accepting open-source digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, for treasury or portfolio allocation.</li>
<li>A cashless trend was already strong, according to the previous year s research but in 2021, covid-19 prompted more movement away from physical cash. In 2020, only about 72% of respondents said that their country was likely to become a cashless society; that grew to over 81% this year. Meanwhile, the percent of respondents believing their country would never become cashless, saw a stark drop from 28% to 19%.</li>
<li>While transaction settlement is a main function of any currency, digital or otherwise, the institutional investor and corporate treasurer respondents in the EIU research appear to be using digital currencie
Place/Date: Hong Kong - May 26th, 2021 at 4:00 pm UTC · 6 min read
Consumers are increasingly adopting cashless payment methods while governments are stepping up planning or piloting of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and companies are experimenting with accepting open-source digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, for treasury or portfolio allocation.
A cashless trend was already strong, according to the previous year’s research but in 2021, covid-19 prompted more movement away from physical cash. In 2020, only about 72% of respondents said that their country was likely to become a cashless society; that grew to over 81% this year. Meanwhile, the percent of respondents believing their country would never become cashless, saw a stark drop from 28% to 19%.
IE Staff
Roughly one in five hedge funds were invested in digital assets earlier this year, with more managers planning to try their luck with crypto, according to a new survey.
The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), PwC and Elwood Asset Management released their latest report on hedge funds and digital assets after surveying fund managers. The survey covered 39 global funds managing roughly US$180 billion in the first quarter of this year (all values below are in U.S. dollars).
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Bitcoin’s value soared last year, boosting the assets of crypto hedge funds from $2 billion to $3.8 billion. While the median return in 2020 among crypto hedge funds was 128% (compared to 30% in 2019), discretionary long-only funds performed best with a median return of 294%, the report said. Hedge funds with quantitative strategies the most common