Classic Business

Stacey Brewer, co-founder and CEO of independent private school network SPARK Schools to

Wayne McCurrie, portfolio manager, FNB Wealth and Investments

Greg Katzenellenbogen, senior portfolio manager at Sanlam Private Wealth

Deon Robbertze, CRDC SA Business and Communications Director

Elizabete Da Silva, Executive Director in EY People Advisory Services

Gerrie Fourie, CEO Capitec

Rob Towell, portfolio managers at Sasfin Securities

Chris Gilmour, independent analyst

Lester Davids, Unum Capital

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted everything from consumer behaviour to supply chains, and the economic fallout is causing further changes. The one thing that we hear about constantly is how technology and digital transformation has been speeded up as a result. But how much of this is true and how much of this is just pure IT hype, over sell and under deliver?

Michael Avery hosted Samir Sharma, founder & CEO, Datazuum, a London-based data management consultancy specialising in data strategy and analytics. Sharma hosts “The Data Strategy Show” podcast, & Paul Morley, Executive - Group Data Services, Nedbank, to try and pierce the hype and distinguish real change and real value from the breathless marketing spin surrounding cloud, data and digital transformation strategies.

Dr Martyn Davies, Deloitte

There is a new wave of excitement about cryptocurrencies after the market topped 2 trillion for th1st time, but S&P Global Ratings believes they continue to be speculative instruments instead of a means for commerce.

In a report published Thursday, titled "The Future Of Banking: Cryptocurrencies Are Still Mostly About Speculation, Not Payment", S&P analysts said they believe regulators and much greater public confidence hold the key to more widespread use.

That hasn’t stopped the parabolic rise of Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies year to date.

And this week Wednesday Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in America, is scheduled to go public via an IPO. Coinbase will list its shares directly on the Nasdaq, becoming the first publicly-traded crypto exchange in the US.

Coinbase thrived last year as investors poured into bitcoin. In 2020: it made $1.2bn in revenue, and its first-ever annual profit of $322m.

Yet, we still exchanges failing like iCE3, which posted an announcement on Monday that it had been “advised to initiate liquidation proceedings” after suspending all trading on the exchange in March following the discovery of account discrepancies.

So where does this leave the long run investment and use case for cryptos?

Michael Avery hosted Badi Sudhakaran who is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of VALR.com; Anthony Rocchi, co-founder of RexSolom Invest a boutique asset manager ; & & Wiehann Olivier, Partner at the Audit Division of Mazars, for a roundtable on how investors should protect themselves on their way to the moon.