Interaxis and CPE World, two digital asset education companies, are merging to form a comprehensive platform to teach financial advisers and accountants how to incorporate cryptocurrencies into their practices.
Interaxis began in 2019 as a YouTube channel for Adam Blumberg, a certified financial planner, and Ron Dixon, a financial analyst, to explain the world of blockchains, cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance. As the platform grew, Blumberg closed his RIA to work full time on digital asset education.
With the merger, Interaxis gains the continuing education courses for accountants developed by CPE World, which was launched in 2001 by Steven Larson, a CFP and certified public accountant. Bringing the two together under the Interaxis brand will allow them to serve a wider range of professionals — especially those who are registered as both planners and accountants — and scale the programs to meet exploding interest in crypto among financial services, Blumberg said.
“We don’t sell anything. We don’t push anything. We just want to explain [cryptocurrency] from the perspective of financial advisers,” he said. “We’re not telling them they need to buy or sell crypto, or they need to tell their clients to buy or sell crypto. We’re showing how to make it a part of their practice and how to have conversations with clients.”
More than eight out of 10 professional investors believe digital assets will become mainstream, with just 3% saying they won’t and 13% saying it’s too early to tell, according to a global survey from London-based hedge fund manager Nickel Digital Asset Management. Fifty-three percent of respondents expect digital assets to play a role in portfolio diversification, and 51% believe blockchain technology will tokenize traditional assets.
“To a great extent, digital assets have already achieved ‘escape velocity’ — they have achieved a multitrillion-dollar market cap, and there is gradual regulatory acceptance of them in key countries,” Anatoly Crachilov, CEO and founding partner of Nickel Digital, said in a statement.
That demand has set off
“The level of detail we go into and the hands-on aspect are a couple of things that make us different,” Larsen added.
Blumberg and Larsen have also launched PlannerDAO, an organization for crypto-enthusiastic advisers that now has more than 900 members, and the Certified Digital Asset Advisor designation, a program of in-depth training on cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and DeFi.
“The key point is that it’s going to be community governed,” Larsen said. “Right now, it’s 10 to 15 advisers that determine what the criteria should be. We have a chance to rethink how we teach and test and offer continuing education from the ground up.”
The two envision a time when custodians or broker-dealers will require advisers to be trained in digital assets before they are allowed to manage them for clients, and they want PlannerDAO to be like the CFP for digital asset advisers. To that end, Interaxis and PlannerDAO have partnered with Rice University to offer the CDAA program through the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies.
While certification isn’t a necessity, it can be a powerful way to gain a deeper understanding of digital asset space, said Ben Cruikshank, head of Flourish Crypto. Especially a program tailored specifically to advisers and financial planners.
“Every single day, we hear from advisers who are fielding questions about crypto and find themselves ill-equipped to have a conversation about the asset class,” Cruikshank said. “With tens of millions of Americans already investing in crypto on their own, advisers often find their level of knowledge lags behind that of their clients and prospects, putting pressure on advisers to educate themselves on the space if they want to serve existing clients and continue to win prospects."
