Published
5 years ago on
August 16, 2018
“Wall Street is taking cryptocurrencies seriously. However, the vast majority of Wall Street firms are still not participating in the cryptocurrency market, which remains primarily a retail-driven market. This will change over time, but it will take time.â€There is of course a reason for this, according to CCN:
“Institutional investors have been on the sidelines for a while due to the regulatory uncertainty hanging around cryptocurrencies. Investors on Wall Street are waiting for the regulators to clarify their positions on tokens and allow other financial instruments into the market, such as the Bitcoin ETF proposal drafted by Gemini and Cboe Global Markets Inc. The fund, if approved would have opened up the volatile cryptocurrency market to institutional investors.â€Volatility and uncertainty, caused by a lack of regulation, cryptocurrency adoptions worst enemy. How long must we wait? The thing is, nobody really knows, not even the institutions themselves. This is in the hands of the regulators at the moment. It’s pretty clear that major institutions want to avoid crypto until they can be sure they are safe and that they are not breaking the law. None of this can be achieved so long as the industry remains mostly unregulated. We need to take Japan as a model for how to approach this. Regulate the exchanges and at the very least, a legal framework can be built and of course, investors can be protected. By regulating exchanges worldwide, institutional investors on Wall Street (for example) will feel a little safer and thus, a little more optimistic about the whole thing, therefore, the best chance we have here is in seeing some light, international regulation. Regulation will take time, I think that’s what Winklevoss is getting at here.
