US investment banks have long produced research on digital assets, but now they want to pay more attention to the sector, as the number of large publicly traded companies operating in the space grows and cryptocurrency markets are pouring into traditional finance. Late last year, Morgan Stanley announced that Sheena Shah would lead a new team covering the crypto ecosystem, while Bank of America announced its own crypto hedge unit in October. Coinbase has a long list of analysts covering its stock, including researchers from Citi, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Raymond James. In addition to covering the business of crypto companies, the analysts also analyzed token prices, new technological developments in the blockchain space, and other topics. "If you look at the number of companies mentioning cryptocurrencies, this went from about 17 last year to about 147 in the most recent quarter," Candace Browning, BofA Securities global research chief recently told Bloomberg TV.
The trend has also been fueled by rebrands, such as in Meta (formerly Facebook) and Block (formerly Square) aimed at highlighting cryptographic ambitions. As for the metaverse, the new niche crypto buzzword was mentioned by executives at Bumble, Qualcomm and Tencent during their third-quarter earnings conferences. Amid the growing intrigue around cryptocurrencies, Jefferies has created a research team dedicated to payments and researching crypto stocks. The company is currently looking for collaborators for the unit that deals with "cryptocurrency and blockchain technology". Canaccord Genuity is looking to create a similar figure who will interface with the corporate management teams and write research reports. Credit Suisse, meanwhile, is looking to create VP-level crypto and digital assets figures, even according to a job posting. The person in charge of that role should prepare reports on the cryptographic industry and present them to institutional clients and manage the company's assets.
by Alessandro Crea Tuesday 1 February 2022 16:00