What Will Drive Crypto Growth?
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of the Bitcoin protocol, always expressed an inkling of mistrust and cynicism towards centralized institutions, including Wall Street and the incumbent government. And for many years, much of the broader crypto community echoed these thoughts. Over the years, however, the underlying value proposition of Bitcoin and other crypto assets have been misconstrued, especially as ‘get rich quick’ schemes have become a sector mainstay.
And this newfound penchant for speculation, which lies dormant in human nature, is what the chief executive of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) sees as a main detractor for BTC’s growth. In an exclusive interview with Business Insider in Florida, Terry Duffy explained that the crypto community is too focused on prices. Instead, he says, stakeholders should target their efforts at building valuable use cases, as Duffy sees this as a driver for eventual growth. He explained:
Once you get the use of it, the price will take care of itself… But the argument has gone only to the price of say bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. No one is talking about, ‘How do I use this asset?’
Duffy adds that from his perspective, the most viable cryptocurrencies are stablecoins, as he sees them as the perfect dichotomy between digital money and traditional assets.
Regulators Scared Of Bitcoin Supply Cap
While Duffy seems sure that digital assets have some usability in the real-world, hence why his firm has become the leading regulated Bitcoin futures exchange, he claims that regulators are wary.
In a seeming response to an inquiry about whether organizations like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are curbing exchange-traded crypto products, like VanEck’s Bitcoin ETF, Duffy explained that organizations like those are wary of crypto’s supply caps. He explains that their limited supply, like Bitcoin’s 21 million cap, is something that governments struggle with, as they constantly run on deficits.
Duffy notes that he doesn’t see a world in which an entity like the U.S. governments drops fiat for crypto, and says “‘Sounds good to me, because I want to be responsible and run everything on even-for-even basis.'” And with that, he concluded that cryptocurrencies need a greenlight from regulatory agencies.
This lines up with a narrative he established earlier this year in a Bloomberg TV interview. In that discussion, Duffy explained that for cryptocurrencies to succeed, industry participants will need to brown-nose (gain approval) governments. In fact, he remarked that this is the “bottom line,” or else it will be “very difficult for the major commercials to come into this space” in a gung-ho fashion.
Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash
