ISITC TALKTIME: The Impact of Crypto on Economic Recovery

ISITC TALKTIME: The Impact of Crypto on Economic Recovery

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Cathy Wright

TalkTime Podcast: The Impact of Crypto on Economic Recovery

(The Convergence of Traditional Markets with Digital Assets)

In this TalkTime Podcast Gary Wright, Director of Industry Affairs at ISITC Europe discusses with GMX Founder, Hirander Misra the ongoing development of digital assets and the convergence with traditional financial markets. Although, this was recorded a few years ago, during lockdown, it has the value of enabling the viewer to assess the content with hindsight. As such this discussion has important information relevant to today’s debates about digitalization, future structures and the role of traditional investing firms, their clients and the impact of crypto on economic recovery. The discussion focused on:

Hirander discusses:

• Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and the future of central banks.
• Government use of CBDC and the role they can play in the economic recovery and international development
• Bitcoin
• The need for collaboration across domestic and international markets.
• How firms and investors should manage digital assets in modern portfolios.
• How crypto and a widespread usage can assist SMEs and be superior capital raising than private markets.
• What will be the overall impact on traditional investing and capital raising?

The use of digital assets to aid the fight and protection against money laundering are also talked about. This from the aspect of digital assets/crypto and the DLT/Blockchain technology being for positive legitimate use. Rather than by criminal use, as perceived by some people. KYC and AML create substantial costs for banks and the use of digital assets is cheaper and can remove significant operational costs.

Retail investors in the EU & UK are not being encouraged to enter the crypto market, so it is not considered a major competitor to traditional markets, even though they are more expensive.  Mauritius, the Seychelles and Africa have developed into hybrid markets and the Asian markets as a result the investors in these markets have become more sophisticated in investing and trading in different asset classes, including crypto.

There was talk of major online retailers utilising crypto as a corporate token in exchange for their products.

There was an interesting discussion concerning the possible potential of vertical markets versus horizontal markets and the benefits to consumers and investors. This led onto a conversation about ESG and Blockchain compatibility and that Blockchain netting would introduce the ability to reduce carbon costs.

The podcast also included a chat about domestic and global regulations for all types of digital products and asset classes.

Lastly Hirander provided his vision of how the future markets are likely to evolve.

Viewing time: 33 mins

Hirander Misra has extensive electronic trading and FinTech expertise spanning 28 years, with successful syndication to investors and substantial exits. He is Chairman & CEO of GMEX Group and its climate fintech platform-as-a-service ZERO13, which won the COP 28 UAE TechSprint as the best solution for the use of blockchain to scale climate finance.

He is one of the Top 10 influential business leaders of blockchain technology in the UK All Party Parliamentary Group report and is also featured in LATTICE80’s Top 100 influencer list for the UN Sustainable Developments Goal agenda for pioneering blockchain technology solutions. Hirander was also recognised as the Most Influential CEO 2024 – UK (Carbon Credits) by CEO Monthly, a digital magazine published by AI Global Media.

Hirander is a regular speaker at high profile events such as COP28 UAE and COP29 Azerbaijan, at Davos during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, the Arab Monetary Fund’s Arab Green & Sustainable Finance Network (AgreFin), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Summit and the Connected Africa Summit hosted by the Government of Kenya. Hirander has also been a TEDx speaker on topics such as “democratisation of the individual, change is the only constant”.

Previously he was the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Chi-X Europe Limited, instrumental in taking the company from concept to successful launch.