Morgan Stanley

Google invested a whopping $1.5B into blockchain companies since September

Other notable corporate investors include BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, Samsung and Goldman Sachs, according to a report from Blockdata.

Google parent company Alphabet poured the most amount of capital into the blockchain industry compared to any other public company, investing $1.5 billion between Sep. 2021 and Jun. 2022, a new report shows.

In an updated blog published by Blockdata on Wednesday, Alphabet (Google) was revealed as the investor with the deepest pockets compared to the top 40 public corporations investing in blockchain and crypto companies during the period.

The company invested $1.5 billion into the space, concentrating on four blockchain companies including digital asset custody platform Fireblocks, Web3 gaming company Dapper Labs, Bitcoin infrastructure tool Voltage and venture capital company Digital Currency Group.

This is in stark contrast to last year when Google diversified its much smaller $601.4 million funding effort across 17 blockchain-based companies, which again included Dapper Labs, along with Alchemy, Blockchain.com, Celo, Helium and Ripple.

Google’s increased investment into the blockchain industry is consistent with the other top 40 publicly traded companies, with $6 billion in total being invested during this time, compared to $1.9 billion between Jan. 2021 to Sep. 2021 and $506 million in all of 2020.

The other big corporate investors include asset management company BlackRock, which invested $1.17 billion, investment banking corporation Morgan Stanley, investing $1.11 billion, and electronics company Samsung, with investments totaling $979.2 million.

Like Google, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock adopted a more concentrated approach investing in only two to three companies during the period. However, Samsung was by far the most active investor having invested in 13 different companies.

The data also found that companies offering some form of nonfungible token (NFT) solutions have been the most popular investment:

“Many of these belong to industries such as gaming, arts & entertainment, and distributed ledger technology (DLT).”

The remaining investments have been split between companies that provide Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS), infrastructure, smart contract platforms, scaling solutions and digital asset custody platforms.

The data also found that banks have started to increase their exposure to crypto and blockchain companies, driven by an increase in client demand for crypto services. Among the banks finding themselves on the top list of crypto investors are United Overseas Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and BNY Mellon.

Morgan Stanley encourages investors to buy battered El Salvador eurobonds

The banking giant estimated that El Salvador wouldn’t face any issues with its debt payment for another year, despite the crisis it’s facing currently.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin (BTC) bet has somewhat backfired, with the top cryptocurrency currently trading at a 70% discount from its top. At a time when the Latin American nation is struggling with its debt, Morgan Stanley has given a buy call for the battered eurobond.

Simon Waever, global head of emerging-market sovereign credit strategy at Morgan Stanley, told investors in a Tuesday note that El Salvador’s bonds are overly punished by the market conditions, despite the country having better financial metrics than many of its peers, reported Bloomberg. The note to investors read:

“Markets are clearly pricing in a high probability of the autarky scenario in which El Salvador defaults, but there is no restructuring.”

Waever noted that a country’s debt shouldn’t trade lower than $0.437 on the dollar, even in cases of default, but also admitted that the level is impossible to achieve in the current market condition due to tightening global liquidity.

The Tuesday note assessed that El Salvador shouldn’t have any problem repaying debts for the next 12 months because of the primary surplus, plus it has smaller maturities coming due than other distressed nations like Argentina, Egypt and Ukraine.

El Salvador made BTC legal tender in September 2021, and things seemed to work perfectly well for the small nation while the bull market peaked. The country has purchased nearly $56 million worth of BTC since September and even used the profits to build schools and hospitals. However, the country lost a significant chunk of its investment once the bear market set in.

There were discussions around the issuance of a Bitcoin volcanic bond after a $1 billion aid request to the International Monetary Fund fell through. However, the bond, which was hyped along with a Bitcoin city, has seen numerous delays with no concrete date for a launch.