The crypto industry has received another boost with the entry of financial services giant Northern Trust in a quiet but significant move. The firm, which manages over $10.7 trillion in assets, has added blockchain features into its private equity workflow, while extending its administration services to a select group of hedge funds betting on digital assets.Institutional Entry at Long Last?For months, the cryptocurrency market has waited for the expected entry of institutional finance, an event which is expected to herald its coming-of-age as a bona fide investment asset class with a long-term future. By and large, a torrent of banks and funds pouring money into crypto assets has not materialized, driven in part by fears of regulatory uncertainty, and the erratic and unconventional behavior of the asset.This series of quiet but deliberate moves by Northern Trust, however, could signify the beginning of a significant investment influx to crypto markets. In an interview with Forbes, Pete Cherecwich, president of corporate and institutional services at Northern Trust confirmed that a shift is indeed taking place, and he highlighted the reason why.“You can take anything today. You can take movie rights, you can take all sorts of entities, and you can create a token for those. We have to be able to figure out how to hold those tokens, value those tokens, do those things,” he said.While Northern Trust didn’t ...
