Nasdaq CEO Is Bullish About Bitcoin

Just before the World Economic Forum started at Davos this week, the President and CEO of Nasdaq, Adena Friedman called the invention of crypto "a tremendous demonstration of genius and creativity."

The company [Nasdaq.inc] was founded in 1971 and owns the Nasdaq stock exchange, which is the second biggest stock exchange in the world by market capitalisation as well as the Nasdaq Nordic, Nasdaq Baltic and “several US stock and options exchanges.”

The CEO of Nasdaq discussed cryptocurrencies in a recent article she posted on LinkedIn with the title “New chapters in innovation and disruption will be written in 2019".

To start off the article, Friedman said that she could "see several trends that will continue to shape our markets and the broader economic landscape in the year ahead." With this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the CEOs article and some of the key references she makes to cryptocurrencies.

"With several thousand competing cryptocurrencies vying for investor attention, the world of 'crypto' has gone through the first phase of the classic invention lifecycle, marked by early pioneers, followed by hype, followed by proliferation of newcomers and then a dose of reality."

She continues to say that there will be two outcomes next:

• Either "the innovation finds practical utility followed by years of steady and sustainable commercial progress and integration into the economic fabric (e.g., the Internet).

or

• The " invention fails to achieve broad adoption and its commercial applications as medium of exchange are limited (e.g., the Segway)."

Friedman admits it is difficult to ignore the mass of investors and global investors that have flooded in over the past few years. Continuing, she says “the invention itself is a tremendous demonstration of genius and creativity, and it deserves an opportunity to find a sustainable future in our economy."

One could argue that there are two main parts to bringing in practical utility and more stable value of governance and clarity “both of which are antithetical to the original intent as a decentralized, ungovernable global currency."

Freidman goes onto say that there is a level of fairness and transparency with exchanges “and without some level of oversight and regulation, it is not possible to demonstrate a level of transparency and fairness that will build trust."

Adding on to this, Freidman says:

"At Nasdaq, we are working to help cryptocurrencies gain investors’ trust by offering our technology for trade matching, clearing, and trade integrity to start-up exchanges. We have also invested in ErisX, an institutional marketplace for cryptocurrency spot and futures."

Even though there is a lot of hype surrounding 2019 to bring something positive to the persistence bear market in the cryptocurrency space, at Nasdaq, they believe Bitcoin and altcoins “will have a role in the future.” But it’s role will all rest “on the evolution of regulation and broader institutional adoption.”

You can read the full article here.

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