Cryptocurrencies have had one more wild 12 months.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital asset, has seen a roughly 65% achieve since January — with some ten to twenty % swings in between. It introduced in a crop of new, particular person traders alongside the manner as cost giants like PayPal began letting customers commerce crypto. Extra billionaires and institutional traders dove in to assist legitimize the asset class.
The trade now sprawls properly past bitcoin. NFTs, blockchain-based videogames and “Web3” are prime of executives’ minds heading into subsequent 12 months. Regulation stays as the biggest uncertainty.
This is a have a look at what some of the trade’s most influential executives needed to say.
FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried
The 29-year-old founder and CEO instructed CNBC he does not expect legislative motion to be the quick reply for “regulatory clarity.” Particularly because it’s “pretty hard right now to get things through Congress.”
It is simply as prone to be cobbled collectively from a sequence of statements, enforcement actions, and “other indications” to set the guardrails,” Bankman-Fried said.
The CEO is still bullish on Solana as an alternative to Ethereum. But it’s possible that a new blockchain pops up as the “Holy Grail” that would eventually be able to host a million transactions per second. Right now, he said there are “only a few even attempting to get that time.”
“There shall be substantial fleshing out of the crypto regulatory programs over the subsequent few years.”
“Most banks have successfully determined internally that they are going to be coming into the crypto ecosystem. However how and after they do it’s going to rely lots on the particulars of regulatory construction.”
“There’s huge fear about stablecoins proper now. Nevertheless it’s fairly easy to handle. You will have attestations, or you might have an audit from a regulator.”
“The factor that individuals are fearful about with stablecoins is are they steady? If you happen to can deal with that, you have addressed most of the worries about it from a buyer safety and a systemic threat perspective. It is not that onerous to do. So I am cautiously optimistic that that is the place we’re going.”
Circle CEO, Jeremy Allaire
The CEO of Circle is calling for more use of dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies, or stablecoins, by e-commerce firms, consumers and financial institutions. Circle, which is set to go public via SPAC, operates its own stablecoin called USDC.
Allaire expects to see more institutional adoption and celebrity trendsetters lending their brands to crypto through NFTs. DAOs, which rely on crowdfunding, may even “problem enterprise capital traders on some of the largest and hottest offers in crypto,” he said.
The biggest threat? “Incoherent and inconsistent, unexpectedly shaped rules and coverage,” Allaire said.
“Even in an setting the place the Fed raises rates of interest, traders and companies shall be hungry for the high-yield alternatives provided via digital belongings. So expect to see institutional adoption of digital belongings balloon — immediately, via ETFs, or customized yield-generating merchandise.”
“There may be bipartisan recognition that blockchain and crypto applied sciences symbolize a U.S. aggressive benefit, particularly if correctly regulated, so new laws and legal guidelines will come faster than many individuals expect.”
“In 2022 stablecoin adoption will proceed its upward trajectory. We imagine that {dollars} on the web will quickly be as environment friendly and broadly obtainable as textual content messages and e-mail.”
Bitfury CEO & former head of the OCC, Brian Brooks
Brian Brooks, the former Acting Comptroller of the Currency, said there’s now consensus among lawmakers in Washington that crypto is here to stay. He expects more blockbuster funding rounds after a record 2021, continued mainstream understanding of the crypto space.
For example, not all “crypto” are currencies, or meant to act like currencies, he said.
“Retail adoption is there and will proceed to speed up, however for these established Wall Road corporations and different monetary companies corporations that aren’t already concerned in the crypto ecosystem, it’s a matter of “when” not “if”.
“The need for clear regulatory action that creates a sustainable framework to allow crypto and Web 3 to grow in the United States will reach its tipping point.”
“The level of activity and innovation occurring in the space is too great to ignore, as is the risk to American competitiveness in technology and capital markets.”
Paxos CEO, Charles Cascarilla
Paxos is the firm powering PayPal’s crypto providing behind the scenes. CEO Charles Cascarilla additionally expects extra motion in the stablecoin market. His firm gives its personal dollar-pegged coin, USDP. The CEO is one of many warning that the U.S. has lots to lose if it will get regulation fallacious.
“Big tech and finance players like Venmo, Interactive Brokers and Mercado Libre entered crypto in 2021. There will be even more and bigger players joining the onslaught next year.”
“2022 is the year of the stablecoin. Consumer wallets enabled stablecoins for the first time this year. Money is a product and it needs to be updated for how people live today. Regulated stablecoins like USDP are the answer.”
“Regulatory clarity, consistency and certainty will foster Safe blockchain innovation in the US. This technology presents many opportunities for American market primacy in the long-term if we get this right, and there are many risks if we get it wrong.”
Grayscale Investments CEO, Michael Sonnenshein
This 12 months marked an trade milestone of the first futures-based bitcoin ETF. But Grayscale and others in the industry are looking to take that a step further.
It’s looking to convert the world’s largest bitcoin trust, GBTC, into an ETF and CEO Michael Sonnenshein is optimistic for an approval in 2022. He’s also seeing investor interest beyond bitcoin, and “tension” between Big Tech and start-ups.
“We’re entering into 2022 without a [spot] Bitcoin ETF, but believe that in the coming year the SEC and other regulators will continue to dig in on this issue. We remain optimistic that they will allow for an even playing field — and give investors the optionality between both spot and futures-based ETF products for getting exposure.”
“This was certainly a year when we thought people were diversifying beyond Bitcoin and Ether. We’re starting to see that investors are going to specific protocols and projects, and an increasing mindshare among investors that the universe of crypto assets is only broadening.”
“There will be an expanded conversation around the tension between some of these centralized platforms that are today managed by social media and e-commerce giants, and established tech companies versus some of these up and coming decentralized platforms.”
Robinhood Crypto Lead and COO, Christine Brown
“2021 was the year crypto went mainstream.”
“Whether through NFTs or their token of choice, more people engaged in crypto in what was a breakout year.”
“Crypto has long had a HODL mentality, and that extended to NFTs in 2021 where JPGs replaced photos all across social media. The infrastructure investment from 2017 is ready for primetime, with multiple layer L1s and L2 platforms flourishing in 2021. With more crypto enthusiasts to cater to, 2022 will see companies focus more on design and user experience to ease that transition from web 2 to web 3, and we’ll continue to see major brands continuing to get involved.”
Anthony Pompliano, head of Pomp Investments
If you’ve ever perused crypto Twitter, you probably know “Pomp.” With more than 1 million followers, the investor is known for his bullish calls on bitcoin and said the asset has transitioned from a contrarian idea, to a “consensus idea on Wall Street in 2021.” He expects more adoption next year from legacy companies buying bitcoin for their balance sheets, and eventually building dedicated business units.
Pompliano also highlighted moves in the bitcoin mining industry after China made the activity illegal, bitcoin’s potential for global payments, and a “brain drain” underway from Big Tech and Wall Street.
“Bitcoin mining transitioned from a largely international activity to a US-centric activity in 2021. It would not surprise me to see new all-time highs in the bitcoin hash rate in 2022, along with continued market share growth for the US as a whole, along with Texas as a single state.”
“We saw a major social media platform, Twitter, embrace the Lightning Network for payments in 2021 via Strike’s API (I’m an investor). We also saw a nation state, El Salvador, embrace the Lightning Network for payments. We should expect multiple large Fortune 500 companies to embrace the Lightning Network in 2022 for payments.”
“The brain drain from legacy technology and finance industry will continue. Young people, and increasingly the most skilled people, want to focus their talents on the industry where they can have the greatest impact. Crypto has been growing at an incredible rate, both in terms of new jobs, new companies, funding, economic value created, etc. This transition has only begun and will likely accelerate in 2022.”
Michelle Bond, CEO of Association for Digital Asset Markets
While this was a busy year for the crypto trade association in DC, “2022 is going to be way busier,” Bond said. She also expects the SEC to come out with more enforcement actions.
“The Biden administration has been in office for a year. We’re now presented with a window where something can get done on a bipartisan basis. And that will advance the industry and it will provide guardrails for market integrity and consumer protection.”
“While final legislation may not actually take place, take effect in 2022. I think the direction of travel is going to be clear, and what we’re doing in 2022 is setting the stage for 2023, 2024 and beyond.”
“The balance is going to be one finding a policy framework in which the industry can flourish and the U.S. can benefit where consumers can also be protected.”
Gemini COO, Noah Perlman
The crypto exchange, founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, climbed to a $7 billion valuation this year and is among the dozens with a bitcoin ETF application in the works. Its COO, Noah Perlman, sees crypto payments going mainstream, more non-tech companies embracing the Metaverse, and more women jumping into a male-dominated market.
“More retail companies with household names will expand their crypto offerings, further legitimizing digital currencies as a form of payment and as an asset. Credit card companies such as Mastercard and Visa that offer crypto rewards will become more prevalent, which will make investing in digital assets as easy as swiping your card at a store.”
“It’s no surprise to see tech giants Apple, Meta, Snap, Alphabet, and Microsoft build out their Metatverse ecosystem, but we expect this trend will target other industries as we’ve seen with Nike’s acquisition of RTFKT and Adidas launching an NFT assortment referred to as “Into the Metaverse”.
“The profile of the typical crypto investor will change considerably in 2022. Beforehand, the typical crypto investor was a person in his 30s making greater than $100,000 per 12 months. We already noticed some vital demographic shifts in the previous 12 months. In accordance with Gemini’s 2021 State of the US Crypto Report, 63 % of U.S. adults are crypto-curious, which means they do not but personal crypto however report curiosity in studying extra or holding digital belongings quickly.”
“We’ll see an approval for a spot bitcoin ETF almost certainly in H1.”
John Wu, President of Ava Labs
Ethereum has had a break-out year but new, alternative blockchains are popping up as platforms to build NFTs and other apps. Avalanche is among the new challengers to Ethereum. The president of Ava Labs, a former hedge fund trader, predicts a shake out of “speculative” assets, and a “mind drain” as software developers leave Big Tech in search of next wave of computing. He also expects bitcoin’s market dominance to keep declining.
“We’ll proceed to see inflows into good contract platforms, DeFi, Gaming and
metaverse. The winners shall be the ones with sturdy progress of customers, use instances and transaction exercise. Speculative belongings with no community results shall be the losers.”
“BTC nonetheless has sturdy curiosity from each institutional and retail traders. Let’s not overlook that it has had a ten 12 months lead time in comparison with different platforms so it nonetheless has the biggest model identify on the market. On the different hand, it is dominance over the crypto market is declining and will proceed to take action.”
“Whereas these good contracts platforms do compete with one another for builders, the actual competitors is with conventional net 2.0 corporations like Google and Fb. We’re seeing super curiosity from net 2.0 builders who wish to now construct on decentralized programs as a result of they discover net 3.0 to be much more artistic and thrilling.”