Jeremy Allaire, the co-founder and CEO of peer-to-peer payments fintech Circle, says crypto is in the midst of a “massive inflection point” that should drive a new wave of positive regulation around the world.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Allaire says he views Facebook’s Libra announcement as a big step forward for the crypto industry at large.
“I think the announcement of Libra and the Libra Association – as I’ve said, we view it as a very massive inflection point, and I think it has an impact across the board. First, just general awareness all around the world about cryptocurrencies.
It’s going to bring this into the limelight. It’s going to help individuals and businesses that are interested in this have dramatically more visibility, and, ultimately, we think it’s going to help ensure that billions of people are able to access the benefits of cryptocurrency within the financial system.”
Allaire notes that public blockchains are just emerging and says he thinks the Libra Association’s consortium model is the right set-up for the next generation of blockchain technology.
The Circle CEO expects Libra to trigger a regulatory framework for digital assets that defines how they’re going to operate in the broader financial landscape.
“Our view is that crypto and blockchains represent sort of the fabric of the 21st century economy and there’s an opportunity to put in place policy that allows it to flourish on a massive scale in the same way that the internet flourished in the mid-to-late ’90s, and policy was really vital to enabling that to happen.
So far, policy has mostly been focused on the downside or the risks. What we really need to be focused on is, yes, we really need to manage risk, but also how do we open this up so far, far more companies can benefit from it, and hopefully we’ll see more of that in the coming years.”