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Welcome to the NEW Crypto for Advisors Newsletter

Digital assets and crypto are rapidly changing the investing landscape. We’re here to help financial advisors find their way.

Danışmanlar için Kripto değişiyor. Ben Sarah Morton, bu haber bülteninin yeni editörüyüm. Gelişen kripto ekosisteminde devam eden bir yolculukta beni tur rehberiniz olarak düşünün. Müşterilerin sorduğu acil soruları yanıtlamanın yanı sıra zamanında, alakalı ve düşündürücü içerikler düzenlemek için buradayım. Ama önce: Neden ben?

Kripto dünyasına öğrenme yolculuğum altı yıldan uzun bir süre önce başladı. Blockchain teknolojilerine ve şimdi finans sektörü için yeni dijital para (“kripto” olarak da bilinir) dediğimiz şeyin yönlendirdiği yeni fırsatlar beni cezbetti. Bu yolculuk beni, müşterilerin kripto ve dijital varlıklara yatırımla ilgili sorularını yanıtlarken karşılaştıkları zorlukları anlamak için danışmanlar, finans uzmanları ve çeşitli dijital varlık topluluğu oyuncularıyla her gün çalıştığımız MeetAmi Innovations’ın kurucu ortağı olmaya götürdü.

CoinDesk’in finansal danışmanlar için dijital varlıkları ortaya çıkaran haftalık haber bülteni olan Crypto for Advisors’ı okuyorsunuz . Her Perşembe almak için buradan abone olun .

There is no question that current and next-generation investors are interested in digital assets (cryptocurrencies, tokens, smart contracts, and other digital representations of value). Just yesterday, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggested: “Bitcoin could revolutionize finance.” If he’s right, it would amplify demand from investors (recently surveyed by BCG) and their financial advisors for guidance on how to think about investing in this emerging asset class. And it’s not a simple answer.

Recent news adds to the complexity. In just the past couple of months

A recent Coinbase study showed that over 50% of Fortune 100 companies have started crypto, blockchain and Web3 projects. Such studies raise bigger questions like: How will these advancements affect digital assets? How will advisors navigate the complexities and rapidly changing nature of digital assets?

Advisors have a significant opportunity to support today’s clients and meet the needs of the next generation of investors – as long as they have a roadmap to navigate the digital-asset landscape.

This newsletter is here to help point the way. Each week Crypto for Advisors will share thought leadership from the industry, answer common and pressing questions from clients, and point to resources to better understand this rapidly evolving asset class.

If you have questions for our advisor network – or have topics you’d like to see covered – simply reply to this email, and we’ll try to answer them in future newsletters.

Thanks for subscribing – your readership means a lot to us.

Ask an Advisor

I educate financial advisors about digital assets. Here are the three most common questions they ask about digital asset investing.

– Adam Blumberg

Q: Is investing in digital assets secure? I’ve heard of people losing all their money.

A: It can be secure if you know how to hold the assets and do your homework regarding custody.

Digital assets and crypto are based on self-custody, meaning I hold my own assets in my own wallet(s).

However, we often use centralized custodians – such as an exchange – to hold assets for ourselves and clients, as they take on much of the technology’s heavy lifting. For both you and your clients, it’s important that you research the custodian to ensure they don’t commingle assets and are solvent.

Q: Do digital assets have real value?

A: Each crypto asset has its own value proposition and investment thesis. For example, bitcoin is often viewed as a hedge against inflation, government and banks. Ether is used to run applications on the Ethereum network. Other tokens derive their value from cash flows.

Advisors should understand some of the investment theses and value drivers of various crypto assets to properly evaluate them for client portfolios.

Q: What are the risks of investing in digital assets?

A: We’ve already talked a bit about custodial risk. Cryptocurrencies are also volatile, which poses allocation risks in client portfolios, especially with clients who may need liquidity. Many of the projects and protocols the tokens represent carry their own risks, which can be deeply technical and complicated to understand.

We don’t expect advisors to evaluate all the risks on their own, and we’re seeing more models and services which help determine crypto-asset risks as they relate to client portfolios.

Adam Blumberg is the co-founder of Interaxis, a company dedicated to educating financial professionals about digital assets.

Keep Reading

News of impending rejection from the SEC over language concerning surveillance agreements have led to a wave of updated refilings

Bitcoin ETF’leri geliyor mu? SEC, başvuranlardan netlik talep etti, ancak “hayır” demedi.

Finansal Hizmetler ve Piyasalar Yasası, Kral Charles tarafından Kraliyet Onayını vererek, kripto ticaretini Birleşik Krallık’ta düzenlenmiş bir finansal faaliyet haline getirdi.

Birleşik Krallık, sabit paralar ve kripto para birimleri için yasalar uyguladı. Hangi ülkeler bu çerçeveyi takip edecek ve ne öğrenebiliriz?

Y Kuşağı olarak tehlikede olan 84 trilyon dolarlık servet transferi, X Kuşağı kriptolara bakıyor: BofA çalışması

Nesiller arası zenginliğin en büyük transferi, Web3 ortaya çıkarken gerçekleşiyor. Yeni nesil yatırımcıların ihtiyaçlarını karşılamak istiyorsanız, dikkate alınması gereken çok şey var.

Merhaba arkadaşlar, bugün sizlere Prizmabet adlı bir bahis sitesinden bahsedeceğim. Prizmabet, Betconstruct altyapısı ile üyelerine kaliteli hizmetler veren ve ülkemizin önde gelen bahis sitelerinden bir tanesidir. 2009 yılında kurulan Prizmabet, lisanslı, güvenilir ve avantajlı bir site olarak dikkat çekmektedir. Prizmabet’te spor bahisleri, canlı bahisler, casino, canlı casino, slot oyunları, sanal sporlar ve daha pek çok seçenek bulabilirsiniz. Prizmabet’te oyun oynamak için aradığınız ortamı fazlası ile bulacaksınız.

Prizmabet’in en önemli özelliklerinden biri de Prizmabet TV kanalıdır. Bu kanal sayesinde bahis sitesinde bulunan müsabakaları üyeler bir ücrete katlanmadan istedikleri zaman takip edebiliyor. Böylece hem heyecanlı hem de kazançlı bir bahis deneyimi yaşayabiliyorsunuz. Prizmabet TV kanalında futbol, basketbol, tenis, voleybol gibi popüler spor dallarının yanı sıra daha az bilinen sporlara da yer verilmektedir. Prizmabet TV kanalını kullanmak için sadece siteye üye olmanız ve yatırım yapmanız yeterlidir.

Prizmabet ayrıca üyelerine bol miktarda bonus ve promosyon da sunmaktadır. Prizmabet’te ilk üyelik bonusu olarak 100 TL deneme bonusu alabilirsiniz. Bunun yanında yatırım bonusları, kayıp bonusları, arkadaş davet bonusu, doğum günü bonusu gibi farklı bonuslar da mevcuttur. Prizmabet bonusları sayesinde daha fazla oyun oynayabilir ve kazancınızı artırabilirsiniz. Prizmabet bonuslarının çevrim şartları da oldukça makul seviyededir.

Prizmabet para yatırma ve çekme işlemleri konusunda da üyelerine kolaylık sağlamaktadır. Prizmabet’te banka havalesi, kredi kartı, papara, cepbank, QR kod, bitcoin gibi farklı yöntemlerle para yatırabilir ve çekebilirsiniz. Para yatırma ve çekme işlemleri 7/24 yapılabilmekte ve kısa sürede hesaplara yansımaktadır. Prizmabet para yatırma ve çekme işlemlerinde herhangi bir komisyon veya kesinti de yapmamaktadır.

Prizmabet müşteri hizmetleri de üyelerine 7/24 canlı destek hizmeti sağlamaktadır. Prizmabet canlı destek ekibi sayesinde site ile ilgili her türlü soru, sorun veya önerinizi iletebilir ve anında çözüm bulabilirsiniz. Prizmabet canlı destek ekibi profesyonel, güler yüzlü ve yardımseverdir.

Sonuç olarak, Prizmabet ülkemizin en iyi bahis sitelerinden biri olarak gösterilebilir. Prizmabet’te hem eğlenceli hem de kazançlı bir bahis deneyimi yaşayabilirsiniz. Prizmabet’e üye olmak için güncel giriş adresini web sitemizden bulabilirsiniz. Prizmabet’e girmek için tıklayınız! Prizmabet’e katıldığınıza pişman olmayacaksınız!

Europe is home to the world’s heaviest drinkers. Which country drinks the most alcohol?

Among the 10 countries that drink the most in the world, nine are in the EU. But there are big differences between nations.

If you feel that Europeans drink a lot, your hunch is correct: people across the continent consume more alcohol than in any other part of the world.

Each year in Europe, every person aged 15 and over consumes, on average, 9.5 litres of pure alcohol, which is equivalent to around 190 litres of beer, 80 litres of wine or 24 litres of spirits.

That’s according to the 2021 European health report by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Total alcohol consumption per capita decreased by 2.5 litres (21 per cent) between 2000 and 2019 in the WHO European Region, which covers a vast geographical area of 53 countries including Russia and former Soviet states like Moldova.

But people continue to drink, especially in Western Europe. Out of the 10 countries that drink the most in the world (and adjusting for tourist consumption), nine are located in the European Union (EU).

In 2019, 8.4 per cent of the EU adult population (15 years or older) consumed alcohol every day, 28.8 per cent drank weekly, and 22.8 per cent monthly, while 26.2 per said they never consumed alcoholic drinks or hadn’t consumed any in the last 12 months.

Between EU countries, there are large differences in estimated alcohol consumption, but one trend remains prevalent: men drink more than women: 13.0 per cent of men vs. 4.1 per cent of women drink alcohol every day; 36.4 per cent of men vs. 21.7 per cent of women drink every week.

The largest gender drinking gaps are in Portugal (33.4 per cent of men drink daily vs. 9.7 per cent of women) and Spain (20.2 per cent vs. 6.1 per cent).

Which country drinks the most in Europe?

In 2019, the top 10 European countries with the highest alcohol consumption per capita were Czechia (14.3 litres), Latvia (13.2), Moldova (12.9), Germany (12.8), Lithuania (12.8), Ireland (12.7), Spain (12.7), Bulgaria (12.5), Luxembourg (12.4), and Romania (12.3).

The top 10 countries that consume the least alcohol across the WHO European Region are Tajikistan (0.9 litres), Azerbaijan (1.0), Turkey (1.8), Uzbekistan (2.6), Turkmenistan (3.1), Israel (4.4), Armenia (4.7), Kazakhstan (5.0), Albania (6.8), and North Macedonia (6.4).

It’s worth noting that most countries in this list, except for North Macedonia, Armenia and Israel, have Muslim-majority populations, for whom the consumption of alcohol is prohibited and condemned.

By contrast, within the EU, not a single country has an annual per capita consumption of fewer than five litres of pure alcohol, in fact, only five countries are below an annual per capita consumption of 10 litres: Italy (8.0), Malta (8.3 litres), Croatia (8.7), Sweden (9.0) and the Netherlands (9.7).

Europeans drink a lot, but how often?

Data shows that as people get older, their daily intake of alcohol also increases.

People aged between 15 and 24 are the smallest group in the daily drinker statistics (representing only 1 per cent), while those 75 or older are more likely to have a drink every day (16 per cent).

However, the senior group also has the biggest share of people who do not consume alcohol at all or have not consumed it in the past 12 months (40.3 per cent).

In the EU, drinking every day is most frequent in Portugal, with a fifth (20.7 per cent) of the population consuming alcohol daily, followed by Spain (13.0 per cent) and Italy (12.1 per cent). The lowest share of daily drinkers is around 1 per cent in Latvia and Lithuania.

The EU country with the biggest share of its population drinking alcohol on a weekly basis is the Netherlands (47.3 per cent), Luxembourg (43.1 per cent), and Belgium (40.8 per cent).

Croatia has the highest share of the population (38.3 per cent) saying it never consumed alcohol or has not consumed any in the last 12 months.

Across all European countries, there are clearly many more women than men staying away from alcohol.

Women are the most sober in Italy, where 46.7 per cent say they never consume alcohol or have not consumed any in the last 12 months (compared to 21.5 per cent of men). In Cyprus, that figure stands at 44.2 per cent of women vs. 12.8 per cent of men, and in Bulgaria at 42.0 per cent of women vs. 16.2 per cent of men.

Heavy drinking episodes, compared

Some EU countries have more heavy drinking episodes than others.

Heavy drinking is defined as ingesting the equivalent of more than 60 g of pure ethanol (approximately six standard alcoholic drinks) on a single occasion.

Almost one in five Europeans (19 per cent) reported having heavy drinking episodes at least once a month in 2019.

The biggest shares of adults taking part in heavy drinking episodes at least once a month were found in Denmark (38 per cent), Romania (35 per cent), Luxembourg (34 per cent), Germany (30 per cent) and Belgium (28 per cent).

Interestingly, some countries where a significant share of the population drinks alcohol every day, such as Spain and Italy, rank very low on the heavy drinking scale, with 6 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively.

Eurostat says regular risky single-occasion alcohol consumption is disproportionately more prevalent among men. Likewise, the percentage is higher among those with an upper secondary and college/university education and the highest incomes.

How much do people drink in the UK?

Because the United Kingdom left the EU in 2020, the island nation is no longer included in Eurostat data.

However, British people have a reputation for being heavy drinkers. So, how do their drinking habits compare with the EU?

According to Drinkaware, an independent charity which produces yearly reports about alcohol consumption in the UK, 57 per cent of British men, and 47 per cent of women, consumed alcohol at least weekly in 2020.

The average, 52 per cent, is over 23 percentage points higher than the average share of Europeans (28.8 per cent) who reported drinking once a week in 2019.

Fourteen per cent report never drinking (vs. 26.2 per cent in the EU).

How many drinks are safe?

There is no safe level of drinking, according to the WHO. And not drinking alcohol is the only way to avoid its damaging effects.

However, governments have issued guidance on low-risk consumption.

Canadians, for example, were recently told by the National Centre on Substance Use and Addiction to limit themselves to just two drinks a week. That’s a dramatic cut from the previous recommendation that allowed 10 drinks a week for women and 15 drinks a week for men.

Europe is more permissive than Canada, and the guidelines are relatively similar from one EU country to the next.

Belgium, for example, says the limit is 21 standard glasses per week for a man and 14 for a woman, whether these are half-pints of beer or small glasses of wine.

Ireland, however, advises a maximum of 17 standard weekly drinks for men and 11 for women.

Bulgaria and the Netherlands say the daily recommended limit is either one glass of wine, one beer or 50 ml of spirits.

Germany says the maximum tolerated daily dose for men is 24 g of alcohol, which is equivalent to either 500 ml of beer (one pint), 250 ml of wine (a large glass of wine), or 60 ml of liquor. Women are advised to drink half as much.

Estonia recommends at least three alcohol-free days per week, and not saving up on daily alcohol intake to then only binge later on.

Luxembourg and Cyprus advise favouring wine and beer over spirits. Norway says alcohol should not exceed 5 per cent of your total caloric intake.

The UK’s NHS recommends drinking no more than 14 units of alcohol a week, spread across three days or more. That’s equivalent to around six medium-sized (175-ml) glasses of wine, or six pints of beer with 4 per cent alcohol content.

Because women have less body water than men of similar body weight, they absorb and metabolise alcohol differently. This means that, in general, women have higher concentrations of alcohol in the blood after drinking equivalent amounts of alcohol.

The deadly toll of alcohol

The WHO links alcohol to 30 per cent of deaths from unintentional injuries, such as drowning and road traffic accidents, and to 39 per cent of deaths from intentional injuries, such as suicide and homicide.

Drinking is also associated with unsafe psychological and social consequences, including initiating young adults into other substances and unprotected sex, which ultimately play a role in the transmission of diseases, such as HIV and viral hepatitis.

The WHO estimates that alcohol causes almost 1 million deaths annually across the WHO European Region, and 3 million deaths worldwide.

U.S. SEC Poised to Move Toward DeFi Oversight As It Reopens Proposed Regulations

The Securities and Exchange Commission is confirming crypto industry worries that, yes, the proposal last year to widen its view of securities exchanges is meant to fold in DeFi.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may be coming for decentralized finance (DeFi) as it considers reopening a proposal from last year that would now explicitly target platforms for those crypto transactions as exchanges that need to be regulated.

The SEC proposed expanding the definition of the word “exchange” in January 2022 to capture a broader swath of trading activity in the U.S. At the time, the agency said in its proposed rulemaking that certain entities engaging in trading activity were not regulated as exchanges, creating a “regulatory disparity.”

The securities agency read last year’s comment letters from the crypto industry calling the initial proposal an overreaching power grab that failed to provide enough clarity about its meaning to be legitimate. The commission is going to vote Friday on what amounts to a response to that criticism. If approved, the updated proposal would use more direct language that includes DeFi in the widening definition of regulated exchanges, and it will detail its estimates on how much that change is expected to cost the industry.

The specific changes will be published after the meeting ends with a vote later today.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler contends that most crypto platforms are already operating as unregistered securities exchanges, with or without the latest tweaks to the definition of what it means to be an exchange. But he and the commission are poised to “reiterate the applicability of existing rules to platforms that trade crypto asset securities, including so-called ‘DeFi’ systems,” according to an SEC fact sheet outlining the changes.

“Calling yourself a DeFi platform is not an excuse to defy the securities laws,” he said in remarks prepared ahead of the meeting.

SEC officials, speaking to reporters ahead of Friday’s meeting, said the reopening and additional information came after a number of market participants asked for more information about the proposed amendments and how exactly they would be applied to crypto assets and DeFi.

The agency isn’t looking to actually define DeFi in the rule, according to SEC officials, but will evaluate each situation by how the activity is being handled, including whether there’s an intermediary and exactly what service that intermediary is providing.

In the prepared remarks, Gensler reiterated his view that “the vast majority of crypto tokens are securities” and that crypto trading platforms already meet existing requirements for securities exchanges.

“These platforms match orders of multiple buyers and sellers of crypto securities using established, non-discretionary methods,” he said. “That’s the definition of an exchange – and today, most crypto trading platforms meet it. That’s the case regardless of whether they call themselves centralized or decentralized.”

Industry pushback

The crypto industry has long advocated for U.S. rules that can bring certainty to how the companies and activities need to operate, though prominent crypto executives and their lobbyists have also said that the SEC’s position that they need to register and follow existing securities laws won’t work for this industry. The SEC has broadly chosen against a tailored approach to the cryptocurrency sector that would acknowledge how it differs from the rest of finance, with Gensler routinely arguing that longstanding securities laws are sufficient.

The SEC had pushed this exchange-definition rule and other proposals last year that – without detailing its intentions with crypto specifically – had suggested that the agency meant to formalize its reach into the digital assets sector.

Later, the agency became more explicit about having its eyes on digital assets, when it issued another proposal in February that could bar investment advisers from keeping assets at crypto firms.

With each proposed rule, the SEC’s walls are closing in on crypto businesses that insist there’s no path for them into regulated finance.

The agency received almost 400 comment letters on this week’s revisited proposal and disclosed 35 staff meetings and calls with Wall Street lobbyists, industry self-regulatory organizations, the Bank of England and others regarding the effort. A reopened comment period would give crypto lawyers and lobbyists another 30 days to argue against the rule before the agency will review those responses and decide whether to approve a final rule.

Even when the new exchange definition didn’t name crypto explicitly, the industry opposed it with the assumption that it had digital assets platforms in mind.

“The proposal fails to adapt to – let alone acknowledge – the fundamentally new ways in which individuals can conduct asset exchanges using DeFi protocols,” the Blockchain Association and the DeFi Education Fund argued in a 2022 letter to the SEC. “Instead, it would improperly apply regulations designed for intermediating exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange to software or software developers.”

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee that oversees the SEC, wrote a letter to Gensler with another committee member that said the agency seemed to be trying “to expand the SEC’s jurisdiction beyond its existing statutory authority to regulate market participants in the digital asset ecosystem, including in decentralized finance”

Circle Internet Financial sought the chance to ask for more specific rules for crypto.

“In view of the unique architecture of digital asset markets, we suggest that the commission would benefit the most from a wide-ranging concept release focused on digital assets markets and how best to achieve its policy goals in light of the unique architecture of such markets,” the company’s comment letter suggested.

But some were glad last year at the possibility crypto could be folded into this SEC oversight.

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“The cryptocurrency industry is rapidly expanding with some industry lobbyists insisting that their offerings and platforms fall outside the securities laws and regulations,” Better Markets, a Washington-based group advocating for tougher protections in the financial system, wrote in a comment letter last year. “But clearly, the commission must apply securities regulation equally to all securities regardless of how novel, ‘innovative,’ popular, or profitable such offerings may be.”

It’s been a tough month for DeFi in U.S. policy circles, after the U.S. Treasury Department also made clear last week that DeFi services should be subject to anti-money-laundering laws, saying the platforms have been used by criminals and for terrorist financing.

Edited by Nikhilesh De.