GETTY Danny Masters believes banks cannot compete with cryptocurrencies

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Danny Masters believes the more traditional financial institutions cannot catch up to the crypto world or compete with it. Mr Masters said: "Banks have sat on their laurels for 30 years. I just threw out my chequebook, it looks exactly the same as it did in 1985. “Why should I still have it when I’m doing Uber instead of cabs, Airbnb instead of the Sheraton? They have absolutely failed to innovate in any way, shape, or form and now they’re paying the price." Irregardless of a shaky start to this year of the price of bitcoin he still sees 2017 as a huge victory for cryptocurrencies and said “you needed to be a true believer and you needed to suck it up for 2014, ‘15, and ‘16 - and then ‘17 was just off the charts good."

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He explained how currently there seems to be a clash occurring between the more traditional financial services and the new digital ones. Mr Masters said: “There’s something of a trench warfare going on between what I call analogue financial services companies and digital financial services companies.” The ex-trader has a strong financial background as he started as an oil trader at Shell in the 1980s before rising to become head of JPMorgan’s energy trading business in New York. He left to set up his own commodities fund, Global Advisors. Global Advisors manages clients funds as a regulated investment manager. After studying bitcoin for some time, the firm's principals were struck by the parallels with commodities as those developed into investable asset markets from the mid-1990s onwards.

GETTY Mr Masters believes that banks have failed to keep up with the times

Global Advisors has created the first institutional-grade bitcoin investment strategy (GABI), applying the highest professional management standards to create a truly ground-breaking venture. Mr Masters explains his company’s bitcoin orientation by saying: “We’ve gone from a renegade character to a more confusing animal for people to view. "The analogue financial services companies are not in this game at all. They don’t want to touch the core currency, which is bitcoin or ethereum, they’re suspicious about the industry itself. A lot of people think it’s a criminal enterprise and a Ponzi scheme and a scam." Mr Masters feels bankers are only opposed to bitcoin as the cryptocurrency is a threat to traditional banking.