Investing In the Future: All You Need to Know About IPDAs

Are you looking at investing in assets to boost your finances both now and in the future? In these times of rapidly accelerating digitalisation, many are turning to income-producing digital assets (IPDAs) to generate recurring income. Certainly, digital assets are becoming ever more important in our lives, and tech developments mean they will only proliferate both in number and in their uses. With a landmark 2021 survey from Deloitte underlining the seismic impact of digital assets on the strategies of financial institutions worldwide, it’s no surprise that investors are racing to get involved in the huge potential they offer.

Digital assets are simply items you can buy and sell or store online. There’s no paperwork in the physical sense – all transactions are made electronically via the internet via devices such as computers, laptops and smart phones. As businesses, governments and institutions increasingly move their operations online, these assets are increasing in their actual and potential future value. This is where IPDAs come in – they refer to any digital assets that can be monetised to produce an income. Think of the technological infrastructure powering these assets – by creating opportunities for commerce, they produce income.

The rapid growth of infrastructure technology began in the early 1990s with the advent of the internet – Web 1.0. Simple, static web pages connected by hyperlinks. So limited in retrospect, but Web 1.0’s decentralized and open-source nature allowed anyone with the tech skills to build on it.  This allowed internet platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to burst into existence in the mid-2000s, and Web 2.0 was born.

For the first time, people could use these platforms to publish their content online, and the popularity of the internet exploded. The time of monetizable digital assets had also arrived, with companies beginning to migrate content and systems onto the web in earnest. Individuals also began to publish their content on platforms such as YouTube earning them a residual income.

Through Web 2.0 we saw the advent of companies such as JustEat, Uber and AirBnb – organisations that would simply not exist were it not for the internet. And apps burst into life too. Web 2.0 has unlocked a whole world of digital assets.

We are now entering the era of Web 3.0. Driven by machine learning and artificial intelligence, Web 3.0 will be more accessible and diverse than ever before. Thanks to infrastructure tech, it will be decentralised and promises to put individuals in charge of their own data. This will create a vast amount of digital assets and a huge wave of digital asset investment opportunities. Still in its infancy, the Web 3.0 market size is already expected to reach 81 billion US dollars by 2030. The digital economy is already enormous and investing in the technology that will underpin it in the future is an incredible opportunity. VIAE Capital is a digitally-native asset management company who innately understand this growing space, focusing on the building of the infrastructure that will enable this space to flourish.

Like most new technology, when what became Web 3.0 began to emerge, no-one really knew what to do with it. But during the 2010s it began to become clear that one of the abilities of this tech was to provide virtual ledgers which could record and hold sensitive data. The applications of this tech to industries and organisations are enormous and utterly transformative, for example:

These are just a handful of the ways infrastructure technology is transforming the way we live our lives and do business. And more are emerging all the time! The tech will enhance the monetisation of digital assets.

Paul Newman, CEO of VIAE Capital states that “With great infrastructure technology in place, we believe that digital assets will become a new commodity that potentially can be pegged against gold.”

According to the Government, in 2021 the UK’s exports and imports of goods and services was worth nearly £1.3 trillion. Where there is trade, there is documentation. Finance, transportation, insurance, logistics, contracts, inspection, certification - all these add up to reams of red tape and paperwork. The potential of removing this paperwork in favour of electronic documents hosted on virtual ledgers is enormous. The savings in time, labour and money are self-evident – and in these times of climate change, meet sustainable climate actions and align their capital with environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) – making things immensely more eco-friendly. Indeed, The International Chamber of Commerce has recently stated that digitising trade documents could create £224 billion in efficiency savings alone.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak laid out his ambitious plans to ensure the UK stayed at the forefront of digitalising financial services in April 2021, stating:

“The steps I’ve outlined today, to boost growing fintechs, push the boundaries of digital finance and make our financial markets more efficient, will propel us forward. And if we can capture the extraordinary potential of technology, we’ll cement the UK’s position as the world’s pre-eminent financial centre.”

Back in 2019, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) stated smart contracts could form legally binding contracts. More recently, on October 12th, 2022, The Electronic Trade Documents Bill was introduced to Parliament. The aim of this legislation is to give electronic documents the same legal standing as certain paper ones. This is surely only the beginning of the creation of a full legal framework around digital assets. There can be little doubt that income-producing digital assets are going to proliferate in the times to come.

Infrastructure technology and digital assets are already revolutionising businesses and institutions across the globe, and the possibilities for investors to generate income both now and in the future are clear.

There are undoubtedly considerable gains to be had in this emerging sector, particularly by investing in IPDA’s. This offering is an alternative to the volatile stocks and bond markets, but as with all forms of investment, it’s not without risk. Any potential investor should gain well sourced information.

If you have sufficient funds, then owing an IPDA seems to be a route worth considering.

For more information visit: VIAE Capital