Ex-Real Madrid and England footballer Michael Owen has said that cryptocurrencies and Blockchain will be a staple of the future, as well as being a natural fit for his own business interests.
Speaking to tahawultech.com, Owen, who has recently invested in the Singaporean crypto-exchange GCOX, which helps celebrities list and trade their own crypto tokens, also highlighted the importance of undertaking necessary due diligence before investing in cryptocurrencies.
“Cryptocurrencies are here to stay,” Owen said. “I would say that they’re going to be the future, I’m pretty certain about that. Along with Blockchain, they’ve obviously caught most people’s attention, and are the new buzzwords of the day. If you think back 20 years ago, it was the internet, and now everyone’s predicting that this is going to be a life-changer, and I’d go along with that. The technology’s there. The fact is that governments are now embracing it. I’d guess that there will be a lot more people who join the party.”
Owen, who won the Ballon d’Or – the European footballer of the year award – in 2001, said that he first crossed paths with cryptocurrencies following their rise in the East. “I’ve got a few businesses around the world, a lot of which are in Asia, and in terms of cryptocurrencies and those businesses, it felt like a marriage in the sense that you could use these tokens to be involved with me,” he said. “For a lot of the businesses that I’m in now, embracing cryptocurrencies fits really well, and that’s probably why it was such an obvious thing.”
Speaking at the Future Blockchain Summit in Dubai this week, Owen also warned of the need to ensure that cryptocurrency investment was preceded by careful research and awareness of potential risks. “Cryptocurrency can be quite a dangerous area to go in,” he said. “Legally, you need to cross all the t’s and dot the I’s. GCOX did it properly from top to bottom, and we had a thorough check, because you can’t risk joining forces with somebody that’s not legitimate. They passed our checks with flying colours.”
