The CEO of digital asset titan Grayscale Investments is weighing in on the state of Bitcoin (BTC) as the signature crypto asset deals with an ongoing market correction and negative sentiment.
In a new interview with Yahoo Finance at the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland, Michael Sonnenshein says that investors are looking at Bitcoin’s recent sell-off as more of an opportunity than a crisis.
“I think we have to examine crypto in the context of what’s been happening in the broader markets. You’ve seen rising rates in the US [which] has caused a lot of volatility in a lot of different asset classes, crypto along with it.
The recent sell-off though, from what we’re hearing from investors, has not deterred them. If anything, they’re looking at it opportunistically and a pullback like this is nothing new in the crypto space.”
Sonnenshein discusses how Bitcoin on the one hand does mirror gold’s role as a safe-haven asset but notes that BTC’s relative youth versus traditional investments means making direct comparisons can be tricky.
“Our standpoint on this is largely when you’re looking at something like Bitcoin, you’re looking at something that for us really does look, feel and act like a digital gold.
If you look out over a longer time horizon, you will see crypto being uncorrelated to other asset classes, although oftentimes it is scrutinized because we do only have the last 10-plus years of trading history to really examine.”
The Grayscale CEO says he hopes governments end up providing clear legal guidelines in order to foster further innovation within the industry.
“We’re spending a lot of time in DC and that’s also a reason that the Grayscale team is here in Davos. Regulation around crypto and the entire ecosystem is paramount.
One thing that we really would like to see on the heels of the White House executive order, what you’ve seen out of the UK government, what you’ve seen in Germany recently. A lot of governments are moving their policies and procedures forward and we’d like the US to do the same thing here.
We need to see regulation beyond just enforcement so that we have the proper regulatory frameworks to foster the innovation, to create job growth, to create products and services, to ensure that the innovation around this technology remains in the US, and we don’t lose our competitive advantage there.”
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