What the numbers say: A recent research jointly conducted by The Block Research and the crypto exchange Coinbase has shown that 52% of Fortune 100 companies had crypto initiatives at various stages since the beginning of 2020. The study pointed out that 70% of these companies moved their crypto initiatives to the publicly launched stage as of Q2 2023, hitting the highest level in three years. Also, 20% of the remaining projects are currently at the pre-launch stage, while a 10% portion is still in development. Details: The research findings have also revealed that financial services and enterprise have become the top two categories most invested by Fortune 100 firms. As for the crypto industry, NFTs saw the most investment from the giant companies with an 11% rate, while Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) made up 9% and 1% of the investments, respectively. What it means: The Fortune 100 list is published by Fortune magazine each year to indicate the largest 100 companies by revenue in the U.S. Relevance: The crypto industry recently hit the headlines with not only the initiatives from Fortune 100 companies but also an influx from the traditional finance (TradFi) giants. Most recently, the multi-billion dollar asset managers BlackRock, WisdomTree, and Invesco have consecutively filed an application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), causing the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin to hit a two-month high. Then, the investment firm Valkyrie joined these three firms by filing a similar application. The trend was followed by the launch of a new crypto exchange backed by Wall Street giants like Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Charles Schwab Corp. Over the last months, many other TradFi giants, including the largest German bank Deutsche Bank, the French asset manager CACEIS, the U.S.' oldest bank BNY Mellon, and the stock exchange giant Nasdaq, also announced their plans to offer crypto custody services. Brands that should care: On the other hand, the research findings have pointed out that the number of private crypto investments made by Citi Ventures, Google Ventures, Microsoft Ventures, and Goldman Sachs equals the investments by all other Fortune 100 companies combined. |
