The CEO of Goldman-backed Circle says Ethereum may help push the adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to levels that rival the scale of the internet.
The head of the digital payments company and cryptocurrency exchange Jeremy Allaire says the advent of Ethereum’s decentralized apps are the key.
Blockchain and cryptocurrency may one day be “as broadly adopted as the internet is today,” Allaire told CNBC. “One of the things that really catalyzed the market last year was actually that Ethereum, in particular, kind of got to a place where you could build apps on top of it,” he said. “You could issue new tokens on top of it. You could create new kinds of financial contracts, using the smart contracts technology.”
Allaire pointed out that although Ethereum has the most number of developers using its technology by far, the platform has many competitors, including EOS, NEO and Cardano.
Goldman Sachs bought a stake in Circle back in 2015. The payments company offers a suite of apps that let its customers invest in cryptocurrency and send and receive money to friends in 29 countries. The platform supports Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Zcash and Monero. It plans to add additional coins in the future.
Allaire is not afraid to make bold statements about the future of cryptocurrency. Last month, Allaire said he expects the dollar, the euro, the yen and every other fiat currency on the globe to become a cryptocurrency. “Our view is that all fiat currency will be crypto,” Allaire said. “It seems inevitable at this point.”
Circle recently launched a “crypto dollar” stablecoin to help reduce volatility and reshape the cryptocurrency markets.
According to Allaire, Circle’s crypto trading platform recorded a 30% spike in institutional investors last month. The increase is in line with Grayscale Investments which also reported an uptick and revealed that 56% of its investments in 2018 are coming from institutional investors.
