Marathon Digital CEO believes crypto winter removed “unsavory operators” from the industry.
Fred Thiel, the CEO of digital asset technology firm Marathon Digital, spoke at the Financial Times' Crypto and Digital Assets Summit and discussed various crypto-related matters.
On top of that, Thiel compared the recent crypto market turmoil to the dot-com boom, highlighting the "initial hype cycle" followed by a transition into a "commercialization phase."
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Thiel believes that the crypto market's struggles have flushed out many disreputable operators and forced regulators to act faster and search for ways to regulate the crypto industry.
I think this period of stress that the crypto market has gone through is cleaning out a lot of unsavory operators. It's also forcing the regulators to react, which otherwise they would have been too slow to do.
He praised the regulatory efforts of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), while acknowledging that the US has been somewhat slow to respond.
However, Thiel expressed optimism that the US would eventually "catch up" and a global regulatory framework would emerge.
According to Thiel, another reason for a commercialized crypto industry is higher interest rates.
You have to realize that when money was cheap and free, risk assets were very attractive. We're going to be a period here for a number of years where effective interest rates will be 4%, and so people are going to need to evaluate these assets in a different way.
The collapse of numerous high-profile crypto companies had a ripple effect on the entire sector, with the number of failed businesses continuing to rise. A cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex has been the latest firm to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Kristin Smith, the CEO of the Blockchain Association, also spoke at the conference and shared Thiel's perspective. She stressed that the market's upheaval could lead to the removal of poor management, creating opportunities for other companies to acquire parts of failed businesses.
I think this is a healthy part of capitalism, right? If there was a firm that was mismanaged, we can find a way to put the pieces back together or separate the pieces and divide them up.
The SEC commissioner also attended the Financial Times' Crypto and Digital Assets Summit and claimed that EU MiCA could be a good example for US's future crypto regulation framework.
