In an interview with Ministry of Sport, Monochrome Asset Management founder and CEO, Jeff Yew, discussed the organisations recent partnership with Wall Racing and the potential for sporting organisation to follow suite.
After announcing a deal last week which saw Wall Racing become the first Australian sporting organisation to include Bitcoin in its balance sheet, Yew said Monochrome is excited to help bring Australian motorsport back to life in the post-COVID-19 world.
“Monochrome Asset Management is really excited to partner with Wall Racing and also Craig Lowndes,” Yew told Ministry of Sport.
“The partnership came about when David Wall and I were talking about potentially being Australia’s first sporting team to have Bitcoin added to their balance sheet and then we spoke about sponsorship.
“In the motorsport world, there was a lot of disappointment with cancellations and everything, we thought with borders easing and everything coming back, we really wanted to be a part of the revitalisation of the spirit of motorsport in Australia,” he said.
On the opportunity for other Australian sporting organisations to add Bitcoin to their balance sheet in a similar manner, Yew said: “Like many industries, the motorsport industry will be competitive in this race to have Bitcoin on a balance sheet.”
“In the US, it’s pretty strong, you’ve got Square, you’ve got Tesla, all adding Bitcoin as a treasury asset.
“Some might view it as an inflation hack, some might view it as a channel to access cash on hand as something more long-term.
“What we’ve seen with David and Wall Racing is the excitement in being the first mover in something so iconic overseas and bringing it to Australia,” he said.
When asked about the broad growth of cryptocurrency and digital assets across sporting properties, Yew said it is important for sporting organisations to know the differences and what fits within their offering.
“There are many types of facets or product types in the entire crypto-verse,” Yew told Ministry of Sport.
“There’s obviously the treasury asset side of it like adding Bitcoin to a balance sheet like Wall Racing is doing.
“There’s also the exploration into the applications of new technologies like the NFT space or providence tracking.
“That’s something that’s very diverse and it’s a big broad topic to cover, but I’m sure there are people in this space offering similar services, advice and access to the NFT space for sporting teams.
“We’ve seen projects across the NBA in the US and I’m happy to see more of these happening in Australia than not.
“In terms of from an investor standpoint or from a corporate standpoint, it really depends on what they’re looking for.
“If they’re just looking purely for a treasury aspect, that’s fine, but if they also want to engage in more of the unique ways of creating NFTs for their teams or athletes, it’s something they have to research more into because the space is so wide and it’s really easy for people to misconstrue the different types of assets and worst case is they see it as the same thing and people are buying oranges thinking they’re apples.
“There’s enough space for everyone in this industry, there’s enough types of products for people to explore, but it’s really important to make the distinction between the types of products,” he said.
