Ethereum co-founder Joeseph Lubin says 2018’s bear market is part of the natural ebb and flow of cryptocurrency.
In a new interview with CNBC, Lubin says price action is not the way he measures the future viability of blockchain.
“Digital currencies are not on the edge of a collapse. We’ve seen lots of booms and busts in our ecosystem over the last nearly 10 years and our ecosystem has never been stronger. I measure that in terms of number of projects, number of people that have been drawn into the space. Entrepreneurs and developers is orders of magnitude bigger than it was and the foundational infrastructure is getting built out.”
When asked about the impact of regulatory uncertainty, Lubin said many blockchain-based platforms will require no regulation whatsoever.
“There is some regulatory uncertainty with respect to the movement of value with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. But the blockchain space is about building decentralized infrastructure for different kinds of applications. It’s about building infrastructure for naming systems and trade finance systems and tokenized custody systems. It’s about building infrastructure for crypto assets like equities and securities…
I think there will be lots of self-regulatory activity in our space. We at our company ConsenSys don’t focus very much on cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. Ether has some characteristics of a cryptocurrency but it’s really a crypto fuel or a crypto commodity. The Ethereum platform is a decentralized application platform. There are many other blockchain based or decentralized protocols or platforms and none of those need to be regulated. One doesn’t regulate technologies – one regulates the use of technologies.”
As for his take on the relationship between government and the blockchain space, Lubin is optimistic.
“I think we’ve made tremendous headway in reducing uncertainty in various different jurisdictions around the world. Including some of the smaller jurisdictions and some of the bigger jurisdictions like the United States. Regulators are getting a very good understanding of the value of the technology. They’re applying the laws as they have been doing for decades and clarifying exactly what could be a consumer utility token and not a security, and what needs to be an investor token.”
