Corporate treasurers are venturing into the crypto-currency markets

The investments in Bitcoin by Ruffer and MassMutual may have caught the headlines, but crypto-currencies are becoming a tool for corporate treasurers to manage their liabilities as well as a source of capital growth for asset managers. Near-zero to negative interest rates and repeated central bank interventions are encouraging a more adventurous approach in the corporate as well as the retail markets. Whether this will end well cannot be known, but treasurers certainly need safe ways to trade and even safer ways to custody the assets, and the conventional banking industry is not rushing to provide them. Rob Gaskell, partner at Appold, the London-based emerging technology advisory and investment company, shared with Dominic Hobson his view of the risks and opportunities.

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