Adoption of New Technologies

Blockchain

A blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. The timestamp proves that the transaction data existed when the block was created. Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a chain (compare linked list data structure), with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are irreversible in that, once they are recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks.

The team at Panoramix has a deep understanding of blockchain and how it is being used in the financial markets to create efficiencies, reducing both risk and costs.

Crypto Products & Risk Management

The rapid growth of the cryptocurrency markets over the last five to ten years, and then subsequent collapse of FTX and other major participants over 2022, have highlighted the opportunities as well as risks of these new markets. The major crypto coins still represent interesting alternative asset classes for traders and investors, along with exciting new possibilities of financial innovation through the use of smart contracts. Well-constructed stablecoins have many interesting use cases. However, as the recent bankruptcies have shown, cryptocurrency markets are subject to all the familiar risks of custody, market volatility, counterparty concentration and leverage, stability of collateral, fraud and AML. Upcoming regulation will make market participants have to manage their risks in ways akin to traditional finance.

The Panoramix team has a strong combination of technical knowledge of the crypto markets, deep understanding of financial market risks and familiarity with the regulatory process. We can help in evaluating opportunities, implementing trading or investment strategies and assessing risks for institutional participants.

Securities Tokenization

A tokenized security is a digital representation of a traditional security with the purpose of broadening its market reach and enhancing market liquidity. Properly structured tokenized securities function the same way as traditional (non-blockchain based) securities, except that they can be stored, sold, and exchanged on blockchain networks.  

In the short term, tokenized securities are more likely to be seen in exempt private securities offerings because these offerings tend to have less secondary market liquidity than public markets and blockchain based trading is expected to enhance secondary market liquidity.  A key facet for market participants to keep in mind is the evolving marketplace and regulatory requirements for such tokenized securities.

The Panoramix team has deep domain knowledge in the tokenized securities space having worked with regulators, alternative trading system platforms, issuers and investors. We can assist in devising a well-structured securities offering that brings together the various players necessary for a successful offering.

Machine Learning Tools in Finance

Machine Learning (ML) is becoming a widely used analytical framework in the recent years because of:

  • availability of powerful and cheap hardware including the cloud infrastructure,

  • development of powerful software for both parallel and distributed computing,

  • and most importantly, availability of open source and widely available statistical packages.

Though the breakthrough and progress in signal detection and alpha generation grabs attention, the contribution of ML in automation is huge: early potential or actual fraud detection, nowcasting of macro-economic variables, return and covariance estimation for risk management, to name a few.

Senior management faces challenging decisions on whether to build teams inhouse or depend on third-party vendors. These challenges include the acquiring and cleansing of training data, warehousing of structured and unstructured data, and most importantly securing trained talent.

Panoramix provides expertise in choosing and deploying various proven machine learning frameworks that augment existing quantitative and systems capabilities