Choise.com MD talks about future cryptocurrency trends for 2023
Austin Kimm is co-founder and director of strategy and investments at crypto firm Choise.com. A proven financial services CEO and business strategist, he has helped build companies from the ground up with a combined market capitalization of over $750 million.
Passionate about cryptocurrency and insurance, he has been instrumental in setting up and managing several new insurance companies, including one of Russia’s largest insurance companies. We caught up with him to ask him about the current state of the cryptocurrency market and where he thinks it will be headed in the next 12 months.
How do you see the current state of the cryptocurrency market?
Crypto has grown at an incredible speed and many have at least heard of crypto, it is still actually quite small on a global level, must be less than the number of column inches that the press has recently dedicated to crypto issues justifies.
This is because of these interconnected problems.
Tell us about them. What are they?
There are no champions of crypto outside of crypto When there have been moves by potential non-crypto giants, such as Facebook to launch its own token, Libra, within hours they had to deal with Senate-level hearings. The establishment has too much to lose for things to change too quickly.
It has meant that the leaders in this space are actually crypto exchanges. Of course, they have expanded their service offering, but their goal is to get the crypto community to use their exchange instead of someone else’s exchange. They have no general interest in “educating” the masses about the benefits of crypto, this is left to smaller, less wealthy companies to choose a small target market.
Second, the regulation is just not up to date. Companies fear doing something wrong with very serious implications, and so they establish themselves in less restrictive countries. FTX’s recent demise highlighted the fact that FTX was located in the Bahamas and collapsed so spectacularly, while FTX USA, a much smaller sister company, had no such problems.
Why was FTX located in the US? Because they want to grow as fast as they could, but this just wasn’t possible out of the US. Until regulation gets its act together, we will not see the established financial services giants enter this sector, resulting in more FTX-like situations.
How can these challenges be overcome?
It’s really just a matter of time. There is no end to the great ideas and solutions that cryptocurrency and blockchain can solve, but it is naive to think that it will replace the status quo overnight. Just 4 years ago, there was discussion about whether crypto could survive the bear run or not. Bitcoin’s price fell below $4,000. Now the debate is more about when the next bull run will start, and who is best positioned to take advantage of it. Regulators around the world are putting frameworks in place to recognize and work with crypto.
Time is the only thing required, as all the problems of holding back crypto will be solved. We just have to let it develop a little more, instead of forcing it so hard.
Where do you see crypto adoption in 2030?
Seven years in crypto is a very long period. Five years ago, there was no such thing as a crypto debit card. Banks froze your account if money came from crypto sources. Now, having at least some crypto in your portfolio is a recognized investment strategy.
I am sure that stablecoins will become a payment method that competes with all other electronic payment methods. I am equally sure that many of the market leaders will come from non-crypto first companies, such as banks and social media. They have both the financial muscle and the user base to turn a very interesting market into a global adoption.
