Cryptocurrency legislation will bring huge capital inflows!
Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN.US), stressed that one of the biggest obstacles that needs to be addressed in the cryptocurrency space is clear regulation of the entire industry. According to Armstrong, this will provide an equal environment for everyone, which in turn will provide huge capital inflows to the crypto space.
Regarding legislation, Armstrong said at the Goldman Sachs Communications and Technology Conference: "If the U.S. passes legislation similar to what has been passed in Europe and elsewhere, I think we will see a lot of capital inflows."
He added: "The U.S. will eventually solve this problem because other G20 countries have already gone down this path, and most of them have either passed legislation or are in the process of developing legislation, so the U.S. can't wait too long."
Cryptocurrency is now also a focus of Washington politicians, as Armstrong pointed out that some U.S. presidential candidates have made cryptocurrency a core part of their agenda.
Armstrong said that any legislation would be a good sign for the industry, just like the growth around Bitcoin ETFs.
Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas said that in order to reduce future costs in the cryptocurrency space, cryptocurrencies first need to be fully commoditized and adopted by all participants.
“I don’t think crypto is commoditized yet,” Haas said.
I don’t think we’ll see spread compression until crypto is adopted by every bank, every fintech company in the ecosystem and then drives commoditization, where you start to see fee compression.”
Coinbase shares are up 98% over the past year but are down 13% year to date and have plunged 19.5% over the past month.