The wealth and investment landscape has seen its fair share of changes over the last few years and new technologies have emerged as a powerful factor, the most significant being digital assets. As the ecosystem matures, it presents its share of opportunities and concerns.

The Wealth Today Summit held on June 21, 2022, at the Address Dubai Mall Hotel, delved into emerging trends and factors that affect the investment ecosystem, especially in the UAE. The Wealth Today Summit is an industry-driven event attended by over 300 senior executives from the wealth and investment industry.

The digital assets adoption, the way forward in institutional capital were some of the topics discussed at The Wealth Today Summit. The experts who spoke at the forum were a mix of industry leaders and regulatory authorities.

The topics discussed covered various aspects of the digital asset spectrum such as DeFi for family offices, tokenization of funds and virtual assets, investing alternative investments and hedge funds, family offices navigating the Venture Capital space and investing in offshore jurisdictions: themes and considerations.

“The number and caliber of people who attended The Wealth Today Summit reflects the current state of the market. At the event, we reflected upon why the traditional world should start considering digital assets as a part of their asset portfolio,”

states Gaurav Dubey, CEO, TDeFi – Crypto Incubator and Advisory. He adds,

“The last three years have been pivotal in mass adoption and acceptance of crypto as an asset class in the average household. Factors such as tokenization of regulated securities like gold, carbon credits and even trees played a huge role in making this happen. Today, crypto has found its peg in the traditional finance market. We see that the crypto market is performing better than traditional assets currently. As a high-risk asset, crypto cannot form a majority of the asset portfolio but it has found its place in the wealth preservation funds.”

Benjamin Ampen, Managing Director MENA, Kraken Crypto Exchange, adds,

“DeFi is in a very interesting space, and still in its infancy. It can address issues like inefficiency, opacity, lack of interoperability and centralized control. It comes with an attractive promise of removing intermediaries.”

Going forward, regulations will play a key part. ADGM’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) is at the forefront of issuing regulatory frameworks around DeFi.

The Summit also delved into the nuances of investing in offshore jurisdictions, tax implications and associated risks in addition to having a high-level conversation on the state and future of investments in Alternative Investments and Hedge Funds.