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KPMG in Canada has added an unknown amount of bitcoin and ether to its corporate balance sheet.
The firm declined to disclose the amount of cryptocurrencies it purchased, but Kunal Bhasin, blockchain co-lead at KPMG in Canada, said the firm is taking a “very prudent” approach in the investments.
“This is just part of the investments that we’re making overall as a firm in the crypto asset space, including our services and capabilities,” Bhasin told MarketWatch in a phone interview.
KPMG has been providing blockchain and digital assets-related services, such as strategic realization and operations integration, to its clients. “We believe in the long term value of crypto assets,” Bhasin said. “We’ve been advising a lot of our clients in terms of how they should be thinking about it. And this is just us putting our skin in the game.”
The audit, tax and advisory service provider will continue to build its capabilities in decentralized finance, Metaverses and blockchain gaming, Bhasin added. “Our goal really is to enable institutional participation in web 3.0.,” which refers to the next generation of the Internet, according to Bhasin.
As digital assets witness more institutional adoption, financial service providers have become increasingly engaged in the space. KPMG’s competitor Ernst & Young Global told MarketWatch last year that it is building technology and designing programs for some major banks and other key financial institutions to tokenize financial assets.
Meanwhile, companies such as electric vehicle maker Tesla
TSLA,
financial services company Block
SQ,
digital asset financial service firm Galaxy Digital
GLXY,
and crypto exchange Coinbase
COIN,
have added cryptocurrency to their balance sheets.
But doing so can be risky. Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
is down more than 36% from its all-time high of in November, while ether
ETHUSD,
lost about 35% from its record high.
KPMG in Canada doesn’t seem deterred. “I think as institutional adoption becomes more widespread. We will continue to see this volatility curve mature as well,” Bhasin said.
