CoinShares’ Meltem Demiror’s Deck of Cryptos in Battle sees evolutionary crypto development ahead
Meltem Demirors, Chief Strategy Officer at listed digital asset manager CoinShares, has called on the cryptocurrency industry to put its house in order and embrace regulation.
Speaking on the Chain Reaction podcast, she believed that the conflict between crypto market participants, especially between people who identify as “Bitcoin maximalists” and others who are staunch supporters of other blockchains, needs to end.
This polarization does the industry no favours, she notes. This is because the “ideological fervor behind crypto” has developed and will continue to develop as the asset class becomes more popular. While many market participants turned to Bitcoin due to government skepticism and a desire to take back control of their money in the beginning, crypto currently has much more nuanced use cases.
“It involves politics, it involves institutions and it involves education and many other complex cultural and societal factors. I think we still haven’t reached the big tipping point. And I think it will probably take some time to materialize, Demirors said.
Based on this, the former number two of the Digital Currency Group (DCG) admonished that Bitcoin and crypto should be developed to where the industry must cooperate with institutions, as well as regulators.
“We’ve recognized that for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to take off, we need to work with institutions. I also think there’s growing recognition that the regulatory environment necessitates certain types of behavior,” she added.
Demirors is not the only tycoon in the crypto market to have this attitude. The founders of Binance and FTX, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), respectively, have stated that cooperation with regulators is necessary if crypto and blockchain technology adoption is to go mainstream.
Crypto attracts regulatory interest
While the crypto industry has become more open to regulation, regulators have also shown more interest in the asset class. Globally, financial watchdogs and market regulators have been working on regulations to limit profits in the crypto market and industry.
In Europe, the European Union has reached final agreements on its Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) laws that will regulate the industry in 27 countries as reported by Bloomberg. These rules, intended to take effect in 2024, will provide regulatory clarity for token issuers, VASPs and stablecoins.
In the US, as sweeping crypto regulations make their way through Congress, the SEC has asked market participants to embrace existing security laws. In comments recently, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler reiterated that crypto firms must come in and register their operations with the SEC.
