'Am I Too Late to Invest' in Crypto? Here's What TradFi Is Asking Wall Street Analysts

Crypto, like the early days of the internet boom, is still in a "1996" phase with more room to grow, Jefferies analysts told large institutional investors in a client Q&A report. The investment bank, which launched full coverage of the digital assets sector in September, said it is getting strong and diverse interest from its clients. One of the main questions that analysts are fielding is, "Am I too late to invest?" to which the analysts, led by Andrew Moss, have answered, "Relative to the internet, it's 1996 for the digital asset ecosystem, and the next leg of growth has just begun." By drawing parallels to "1996," Jefferies paints a powerful and specific picture of Wall Street during the early days of the Internet — one that implies that crypto's next leg of growth has only just begun. The bank is referring to an era when the Internet was just hitting the mainstream. Netscape Navigator was battling Internet Explorer for dominance, Amazon was a fledgling online bookstore a year away from its IPO, and Google’s search engine wouldn't even exist…