The Professionalization of Crypto: Why and how to bring digital assets in-house – Onramp Invest, a Securitize company – 4.2.24

Summary:

Now On Demand

There’s an industry pivot away from focusing solely on consumer products towards supporting professional opportunities in the digital asset space. As opposed to prioritizing tools for investors, innovators are prioritizing building access solutions for institutions, developers, and especially RIAs.

With a large number of advisors reporting their clients have investments in crypto away from the advisory relationship, these new tools designed for professionals make it easier for firms to access digital asset investments for clients and bring crypto AUM in-house.

We’ll cover how RIAs can:

• Help clients invest with purpose by leveraging the broader crypto ecosystem.
• Access options for broadening your strategy. For example, crypto ETFs, direct asset investment, and SMAs.
• Leverage SMAs to bring together the best characteristics of traditional finance solutions and apply them to this rapidly growing market in a way that lets you invest thoughtfully without needing to be an expert.
• Discuss the benefits of diversification for client portfolios and how SMAs enable this by using an index listed on our platform as an example.

Lastly, we’ll discuss how to approach this topic with your clients and demonstrate how RIAs can use the Onramp platform to gain access to SMAs through multiple custodians for clients.

Speakers:

Eric Ervin is the CEO of Onramp Invest, a Securitize company. After nearly 20 years at Morgan Stanley in wealth management, in 2011, Eric Ervin founded Reality Shares, a firm known for innovation in Exchange-Traded Funds. The firm’s first ETF, DIVY, was the first ETF based entirely on the dividend swap market. He also pioneered DIVCON™, a quantitative method for analyzing and ranking companies according to their dividend health. As the portfolio manager on seven publicly traded funds as well as other private funds, he has demonstrated expertise in alternatives e.g., dividend swaps, long-short equity, and quant-based cryptocurrency strategies. He is passionate about driving innovation in financial markets, he is a member of the CFTC Virtual Currency Subcommittee for the Technology Advisory Council, and he is also regularly featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron’s CNBC, Bloomberg, and other media outlets.

Connor joined Onramp in 2023. As the Director of Sales, he is responsible for supporting our advisors as they explore modern alternative investing. He has extensive experience working with family offices, financial advisors, endowments, venture funds, and ultra-high-net-worth clients. Connor previously worked at the world’s largest provider of cryptocurrency index funds. Prior to that, he worked at Merrill Lynch in their Global Wealth and Investment Management division. Connor holds a B.S. in Environmental Economics and Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Teun is a Director of Business Development at CDI. He comes from the wealth solutions team at Refinitiv, a unit of LSEG. Prior to Refinitiv, Teun worked at Optimal Asset Management, a factor investing-focused advisory firm. Previously, he held roles at MSCI and JP Morgan. He has experience in both the wealth and institutional client segments, and product experience in indices, ETFs and cross-asset derivatives. Teun has an MSc in Finance and Investments, Cum Laude, from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands.