Think bitcoin isn’t a topic of conversation among traditional financial companies? Think again.
Financial services and investment firm Wedbush Securities is holding what they’re calling a Transformational Technologies Conference at Le Parker Meridien in New York City today.
The conference, according to Wedbush, “connects institutional investors with management executives from prominent public and private companies specializing in digital media, Internet and technology.”
Among the slew of discussion topics is — you guessed it — bitcoin.
Wedbush Managing Director Gil Luria will be exploring the future of crypto-currency (specifically bitcoin) in a panel aptly entitled “Bitcoin Goes Mainstream” — in which the Los Angeles-based company says leading experts from the financial sector are expected to voice their opinions.
“We are seeing a major influx of transformational technologies through our research that we believe will greatly impact enterprises and consumers, and, in turn, the market,” says Mark Benson, who heads the Research department at the firm. “Now more than ever it’s important to identify and discuss the growth potential of these emerging disruptors as they represent immense opportunities for the investment community.”
It’s unclear what the panel will discuss specifically, but it is interesting nonetheless that bitcoin continues to capture the attention of financial giants.
But this isn’t the first time bitcoin (and crypto-currency, for that matter) has been a point of interest at Wedbush.
The firm released a document in early January which saw promise in the bitcoin protocol:
“Ultimately, we believe the protocol will be leveraged beyond financial assets and fulfill the role of trusted intermediary in a variety of settings, including property, legal documents, escrow, sports betting, etc. We believe this development will extend Bitcoin’s reach beyond early adopters to the mainstream public who either choose to utilize the network to due to superior cost/efficiency or through an intermediary that chooses to operate their business on top of the block chain instead of traditional rails,” company analysts wrote in the report.
A number of big-name enterprises are slated to attend and present at today’s conference, among which include Activision Blizzard, Pandora Media, NVIDIA, Barracuda, and Tesla Motors.