Head of ICMA addresses International Conference in Sustainable Finance and Green Fintech

Professor Andrew Urquhart, Director of the ICMA Centre, spoke at the International Conference in Sustainable Finance and Green Fintech in Abu Dhabi this week.

Recognising the need for sustainable finance in reaching net-zero by 2050, academics, policymakers and regulators were brought together to evaluate the issues affecting and shaping the evolution of the broad financial services sector.

Professor Urquhart spoke about bitcoin scams and anti-money laundering laws, touching on the reliability of cryptocurrencies.

Commenting on the impact of scams on the reliability of cryptocurrencies, Professor Urquhart previously said,

There is strong evidence that reported cybercrime and crypto fraud, has a significant impact on cryptocurrency markets – specifically significantly lower trading volume and lower returns.

We saw this when the FBI shut down Silk Road in 2014 and in recent times, where the collapse of Celsuis, FTX and Terra all caused widespread panic across the market. This is a market wide impact as there is strong contagion in the cryptocurrency market.