Lloyds of London thinks so and is now helping in this regard…
Cryptocurrencies are now moving from the fringes of the global financial system to the mainstream. No one wants to miss out of the crypto money, and each day more people are added to the number of investors.
However, the number of institutional investors joining the ranks has not been high. The fact that digital currencies are volatile and decentralized has not helped in convincing them, but that story may soon change.
At the turn of the new week, Kingdom Trust, a digital asset storage company, secured insurance coverage through the Lloyd of London. This means that asset managers now have protection against theft and destruction of their clients’ crypto assets.
This type of security can attract new investors to cryptocurrencies, and from this point, we’ll consider how this is possible.
Digital asset storage companies and exchanges have become the target for fraudsters because of the large volume of investments locked inside their vaults. However, the ability to use “cold storage”, a system where coins are stored offline, makes it possible for firms to avoid any potential risks.
In other words, large volumes of digital assets are highly secure even though there is no regulatory body in charge of the crypto markets. New investors, including institutional ones, do not clearly understand this and fear they could lose money by investing in cryptocurrencies. But they can understand this — Traditional Insurance.
Insurance companies have lived through the years as a trusted channel to secure assets from potential harm. Combining this old trust machinery with the highly secure blockchain system used to develop cryptocurrencies is a double guard.
With this provision, institutional investors such as large custodian banks will now be ready to handle crypto assets owned by its large customer base. These assets can be transferred to insurance-covered companies such as Kingdom Trust who are also regulated as an investment and trust company.
It is true that designing pricing and coverage costs for companies in the crypto space is difficult because the industry is at a tender age and does not have enough data. But the industry has a secure “cold storage” that makes the chances of a loss very unlikely.
Matt Jennings, Chief Executive Officer at Kingdom Trust, revealed that their new insurance broker, Lloyds gave them a “huge discount” for having a cold storage unit.
If more digital asset managers embrace the opportunity of coming under insurance cover, then the crypto environment can finally prepare to welcome more institutional investors. The trust levels in cryptocurrencies will attain a very high level, and then the markets might soar again.
Originally published at cryptopotato.com on August 29, 2018.