Wall Street will keep investing in crypto, says Coinbase exec
Digital assets are increasingly becoming mainstream. According to Brett Tejpaul, president of Coinbase (COIN) Institutional, institutional investors are now taking crypto seriously as part of their modern investment portfolios, and the momentum is growing.
Bringing decades of experience from Barclays (BARC.L) and JP Morgan (JPM), Tejpaul is leading Coinbase’s effort to bring institutional capital to crypto. In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance Future Focus, he explained why the second wave of institutional investment is here now and why regulators play a key role.
When asked if institutions are finally entering the crypto market, Tejpaul said: “They are here. They have been here for a while, but the second wave of institutional capital is coming now, a big catalyst for everyone to get in, because there has been an extraordinary change in the background in the US.”
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He emphasized that the regulatory environment is an important factor. “Probably the most important thing was the change of administration by the Trump administration, and with that came a bunch of really super important things, chief of which was the Genius Act. And the Genius Act legalized stablecoins.”
“We’re on the verge of a market structure bill, too. These are two ways that cryptocurrency is going from undesirable to a mainstream asset within the natural regulatory framework of the United States.”
Tejpaul pointed to recent corporate activity as evidence of demand: “There’s no better example than what we’ve seen at BlackRock (BLK). Together, they’ve raised something like $100 billion in the shortest amount of time ever through various exchange-traded funds.”
“BlackRock’s iBit went from zero to $75 billion in less than a year. There is evidence of demand from a combination of retail and institutional investors.”
Tejpaul emphasized that beyond investment, cryptocurrency gains benefits, especially through stablecoins and payments.
“There are now a series of announcements from major financial institutions, challenger banks, entrepreneurs and major institutions that envision a new digital world built on digital rails, blockchain rails, and so the big moment for crypto has arrived,” he said.
Tejpaul explained that institutional adoption is already underway in the cryptocurrency sector, citing pension funds and institutional adoption.
“We had early adopters, mostly from venture capital and growth funds. They invested capital in this space, some invested in Coinbase shares before we went public. Others allocated their retirement assets to Bitcoin,” he said.
