Riding The Wave News Summary #22
Citadel jumping on board, Is it too late to get into crypto?
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News
Table of Contents
Tweets
Billionaire admits he was wrong about Bitcoin as Citadel Securities looks to crypto markets
Binance founder says cryptocurrencies won’t help Russia evade sanctions
Stablecoins Soar in Value as Everything Else in Crypto Shrinks
YFI, FTM Tank After Andre Cronje, Anton Nell Claim They're Leaving Crypto
NFT Mania Show Signs of Cooling as Average Price and Sales Decline
Tweets
Billionaire admits he was wrong about Bitcoin as Citadel Securities looks to crypto markets
American market maker Citadel Securities is poised to enter cryptocurrency markets this year.
When the interview turned to digital assets, Griffin, who has previously warned the younger generation away from them and said “there’s no need for cryptocurrencies,” revealed that the firm would be engaging in crypto asset markets this year.
It’s quite the turnaround from November 2017, when Griffin said, “Bitcoin right now has many of the elements of the tulip bulb mania we saw back hundreds of years ago in Holland.” At the time, when BTC was trading around $10,000, he added, “These bubbles tend to end in tears. And I worry about how this bubble might end.”
During the Bloomberg Wealth interview, Griffin acknowledged that he was wrong to have been in the “naysayer camp” with regard to digital assets. “Crypto has been one of the great stories in finance over the course of the last 15 years,” he stated
The billionaire investor did go on to tout the properties of Ether (ETH), however, opining that assets based on Ethereum will eventually replace Bitcoin (BTC), which has a greater environmental impact.
This level of warming up is still great progress but as you can see with their reference to climate change it’s still extremely early until everyone gets access to the most up-to-date information. The debate between Proof of Work versus Proof of stake & the assumption that crypto is bad for the environment means that while they have warmed up to cryptos financial use cases most major organizations arent yet diving into the technical side of things such as the increased security we get through using more energy.
Binance founder says cryptocurrencies won’t help Russia evade sanctions
The founder of Binance, the cryptocurrency trading platform, has dismissed fears that virtual money could be used by the Kremlin to evade sanctions as he claimed that “crypto is too small for Russia”.
Changpeng Zhao said cryptocurrencies also defeated attempts to work around sanctions by being too traceable, adding that more focus should be placed on banks. In a statement Zhao said the media and politicians should be focusing on conventional lenders and the oil and gas market.
“Currently, the media and politicians are spending a lot of effort and focus on crypto and sanctions,” he said. “The truth is, crypto is too small for Russia. If we look at the crypto adoption today, there is probably about 3% of the global population with some kind of crypto exposure (ie, owning some crypto). Of those, most only have a small percentage of their net worth in crypto. Less than 10% on average. So, there is probably only less than 0.3% of the global net worth in crypto today. This percentage applies equally to Russia.”
I agree crypto sanctions are unlikely to have a major impact on Russia as a country but I think with the current sentiment I’ve seen in the news it’s possible that they happen. I have been seeing a lot of stories of large companies beyond the financial sector as well as completely unrelated organizations banning anything related to Russia & its citizens. For example, a cat show banned Russian Blues (a cat breed) from competing.
Everyone is in a rush to signal that they are against Russia which is leading to them taking actions that have more harm on people who are Russian or of Russian heritage instead of the Russian government. Part of the reason crypto exchanges aren’t jumping on board with this is that it would cause panic in crypto as the politicization of money is against its ethics. Of course, this would all change if the US government and Nato required them to block Russia so we will see.
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