Bitcoin is an emerging store of value in a digital world, sharing many of the properties of gold – including scarcity, portability and divisibility – according to AMP senior quantitative researcher Jonas Benner, which invests in Bitcoin futures as part of its dynamic asset allocation (DAA) program.

“Then the question is whether we believe that we are moving more and more to a digital world where something like a digital reserve asset, a digital store of value, can play an important role,” Benner told the Researcher Forum, hosted by Investment Magazine sister publication Professional Planner.

“And if we believe so then shouldn’t we at least have a small allocation, and see how the space develops and then maybe we can adjust that allocation?”

AMP has about $50 million invested in Bitcoin at the moment, and Benner said that the initial move to allocate to it as part of the fund’s DAA followed the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs – a signal that Bitcoin was “an institutional grade asset” – and a long process of internal education.

“A lot of people in the team were sceptical of this, and we had a lot of discussions and workshops until we got everybody to feel comfortable with this,” Benner said.

“I think that’s one of the most important parts – you focus on education and having open dialogues. Because I think that’s one thing we’re lacking in Australia, in the finance industry, but also in Australia more broadly – people often shut down the conversation too quickly.

That scepticism pervades the financial services industry, which can sometimes have a reactionary response to new developments, according to Andrew McPhee, financial services industry lead at cryptocurrency exchange Swyftx.

“Back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, I was building internet share trading platforms. It was the rise of the self-directed investor, and I remember senior players in the industry screaming from the rooftops that it was irresponsible, that we couldn’t let consumers just go and buy on their own, it’s all going to end in tears,” McPhee said.

“That’s because when change happens it’s great when you’re leading that change. When you aren’t, when it’s happening to you, it’s human nature to be threatened by it.”

McPhee also questioned whether the narrative of Bitcoin as being caught in a speculative bubble stood up to scrutiny.

“[CoreData global CEO Andrew Inwood] isn’t here to defend himself but I think he can probably handle it, but he called Bitcoin ‘electronic tulips’ because of the Dutch tulip frenzy in the 1600s,” McPhee said, referring to an earlier presentation at the forum that referenced the infamous economic phenomenon.

“One bulb ended up costing about as much as a house, but that phase only lasted six to nine months, and then it crashed and corrected.

“That first [Bitcoin] bull run is kind of comparable where it went from cents to dollars and the corrected, but that was 15 years ago… Since then it’s gone through another cycle and another cycle and it’s gone from cents to US$100,000 [$151,000].”

McPhee attributed that in part to the value of the technology that has underpinned its growth – blockchain and distributed ledger technology – which are being held up as the “new building blocks for many industries, [and] primary amongst all of them is financial services”.

“This technology is being rolled out and is being implemented and will disrupt entire industries, including finance,” McPhee said.

“And I think it’s beholden upon everyone to learn about it and understand it. You make up your own minds what to do with it… but you need to understand the technology and this emerging asset class and what impact it is going to have on your industry.”