Other Alternative Investments - Articles & White Papers
Articles and research on other alternative asset classes (those outside of mainstream alternatives). Some alternatives within this section are insurance-related, so there are a number of white papers on catastrophe bonds, reports on reinsurance securities, and securities backed by life settlements (secondary market for life insurance policies). Is volatility an asset class? This is debatable, but we have included in this section papers on volatility as an asset class or "opportunity class", including the use of short volatility to...
enhance portfolio returns. Master Limited Partnerships are another, relatively new alternative asset, and our listing includes white papers on MLPs, which provide relatively high income with stable cash flows. Other exotic alternatives include institutional investment in wine and institutional investment in art, with one paper examining the characteristics of art funds and their typical investments, while another examines the history of bubbles in the art market. PwC author a report on alternative investment asset classes which considers oil and gas MLPs and insurance flavored products, among others.
Tokenisation is the process of representing fractional ownership interest in an asset with a blockchain-based token. The purpose of this paper is to objectively examine the mechanisms now available to tokenise real asset ownership and to create active secondary markets in tokenised or fractionalised units with reference to…
In this report we provide an overview of the global crypto hedge fund landscape and offer insights into both quantitative elements (such as liquidity terms, trading of cryptocurrencies and performance) and qualitative aspects, such as best practice with respect to custody and governance. By sharing these insights with the…
The fragility of the financial system, combined with technological innovation and the decline in cash use, is transforming the conversation around the future of money. Central banks and governments are starting to rethink the role they have in managing a country’s currency. A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) offers a way…
Since 2015, the Centre for Alternative Finance has pursued a mission of addressing the considerable knowledge gap that has emerged alongside the rapidly developing alternative finance landscape. Among other things, this has meant striving to create a standardized lexicon and commonly acceptable taxonomies to address the…
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the gold supply chain unlike any other event in modern history. From mining operations to consumption, all elements of the chain have been affected. While this has led to some distortions within parts of the market, it has also allowed the supply chain to demonstrate its resilience. And…
With the increase in media attention, public acceptance, and geopolitical tolerance of cryptocurrencies, it is becoming more important for investment professionals to develop an understanding of these new “digital assets”. Thus, this paper provides readers with an overview of the mechanics and utility for 3 of the most…
Bitcoin, and more generally, cryptocurrencies, are often described as a new type of money. In this post, we argue that this is a misconception. Bitcoin may be money, but it is not a new type of money. To see what is truly new about Bitcoin, it is useful to make a distinction between “money,” the asset that is being exchanged…
Way, way back in 2014, I debated the cryptocurrency evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos on the merits of bitcoin. It was a wonderful, civil, and not too disobedient dialogue. I was skeptical, not cynical. Today, six years later, I remain skeptical but now have a cynical bias.
The first Libra Association white paper was published in June 2019. This new Association white paper, published in April 2020, is intended to be a stand-alone update regarding the plans of the Association. Additionally, supporting technical papers also published in June 2019 have been edited or retired. This updated white…
The increasing portion of individuals' wealth in art sets the stage for art-backed lending services. Considering widely used credit default swaps, the paper applies the structure to art-backed loans and develops an extensive pricing model for the derivatives contract, explicitly taking art market characteristics into…
The emergence of crypto-assets is an important area of interest for regulatory authorities, including those with authority over secondary markets and the trading platforms that facilitate the secondary trading of crypto-assets (Crypto-asset Trading Platforms or CTPs). The aim of this Final Report is to assist IOSCO members…
PwC presents its 2nd edition of the Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report, comparing activity in 2019 vs 2018, and projecting out further into 2020.
We discuss the pros of adopting government-issued digital currencies as well as a supranational digital iCurrency. One such pro is to get rid of paper money (and coinage), a ubiquitous medium for spreading germs, as highlighted by the recent coronavirus outbreak. We set forth three policy recommendations for adapting mobile…
Various central banks are currently weighing up the introduction of central bank digital currency. This column proposes a framework that captures the key features and studies the implications of such a payment system. Central bank digital currency can be designed with attributes similar to cash or deposits. Currency that…
Alternative Risk Transfer (ART) concepts have been the vanguard of innovation and progress in the insurance industry for decades. Captives, integrated risk, catastrophe bonds, insurance-linked securities and other products that are now widespread started as bespoke solutions for a targeted problem. The authors argue that…
The rise of stablecoins and asset-backed tokens could drive the development of financial markets via new forms of transparency and data credibility. This column uses the revised proposal for the Libra global stablecoin as an example to illustrate possibilities for supervisors to harness information in distributed ledger…
The money landscape today is littered with alternative forms of money (and payments), particularly as technological capacity has increased. Looking back, regime shifts from barter, to commodity money, to the gold standard and paper money, and ultimately to fiat was by no means smooth, but one can discern a tendency over time…
A core challenge in studying the real return on artists’ work is the extreme difficulty accessing private records from when an artwork was first sold and thus relying on public auction data. In addition, artists do not typically receive proceeds after the initial sale. This paper, for the first time, uses archivally sourced…
