Crypto

Cryptocurrency won’t go mainstream until US solves its problems, says Chainalysis CEO

Published

2 years ago

May 16, 2024

Cryptocurrency won’t go mainstream until US solves its problems, says Chainalysis CEO

Cryptocurrency may not become a fully mainstream financial instrument until concrete regulations for the highly volatile industry are drawn up and enforced by authorities in the US, the chief executive of blockchain company Chainalysis has said.

While acknowledging that current cryptocurrency frameworks are “actually pretty good and functional”, the $2.33 trillion industry’s other issues need to be addressed, especially when it comes to protecting investors and consumers, Michael Gronager told The National.

The US, the world’s biggest economy that is also considered the most important financial market as the Federal Reserve sets the global tone for interest rates – should take the lead on this, he said.

“In finance, everyone looks towards to the US first trying to figure out what’s going on, and then whether the regulation has already been created in other places first … it’ll be changed to adapt the US framework once it’s figured out,” Mr Gronager said.

“We’ve seen that in the past; we’ll see that again with crypto. So, we are kind of waiting for the US to solve some of these things and that’s where things stand today.”

The US granted the cryptocurrency sector a major victory in January when it finally approved the country’s first spot Bitcoin ETFs, clearing the way for trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the Cboe Global Markets and the Nasdaq Composite, and making Bitcoin more accessible to retail traders.

ETFs “definitely boosted the sentiment of crypto”, Mr Gronager said.

In addition, US authorities have been vigilant in clamping down on the sector, running after irregularities and illicit activity within the ranks.

Their actions have claimed some of the biggest names, including Sam Bankman-Fried, the former chief executive of FTX who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud, and former Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao, who in November pled guilty to charges related to money laundering and was handed a four-month prison sentence on April 30.

“The FTX case was so unique; it was less tied to crypto and more tied to a traditional fall because everything happened behind closed doors, and was related to how that company was run by the people behind it,” Mr Gronager said.

“The lesson learned by the industry and regulators is that if it’s a non-regulated business in your jurisdiction and you don’t have any ways to think that your funds would be good, they’re probably not good,” he added, also noting the collapses of Three Arrows and Celsius Network in 2022.

The fates of those companies, coupled with job losses at the time, triggered the so-called cryptocurrency winter, a period in which the sector cooled down, dragging Bitcoin to below its key $20,000 psychological level in June 2022 and wiping out about $2 trillion from the digital asset industry’s market capitalisation.

“Celsius and Three Arrows were the symptoms of a way too hot finance market. And the newest kids in finance were the crypto exchanges and some crypto projects – they were definitely the ones who overleveraged completely,” Mr Gronager said.

“And some of them did it in an illegal way. And that was basically what we saw there. We also saw established venture capital firms over-leveraging their investments and getting in big trouble, but most of them actually survived it.”

For the broader finance industry, Mr Gronager believes there is a “solid and pretty good framework” that tackles money laundering and terrorist financing.

Applied to the cryptocurrency sector, the $4.3 billion settlement between Binance and the US Department of Justice last November is an indication that authorities have taken a stance and this is being taken very seriously.

“We had all the big banks … each getting billion-dollar fines; now you’re seeing the same in the crypto space and that raises the bar, ensures compliance will be high priority, and a good understanding and responsibility of the industry,” Mr Gronager said.

Among the most notable fines imposed on financial institutions for compliance failures are JP Morgan Chase’s $2.6 billion settlement in the aftermath of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme in 2014 and Credit Suisse’s $5.28 billion payment in 2017 for misconduct on sales of residential mortgage-backed securities.

“There’s now a price on not doing compliance or making mistakes.”

Regulations are key to establishing trust in the cryptocurrency industry, and governments should play an active role in ensuring this, said Mr Gronager, who counts the UAE as among “the top three to five in terms of the global landscape” of finance and cryptocurrency, as well.

He said the Emirates has had “a good way of working with the [crypto] industry, ensuring that there’s adequate regulation”, at par with other global financial centres such as New York, London and Singapore.

The total value of cryptocurrency transactions in the UAE from the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024 hit $39.2 billion, data provided by Chainalysis to The National shows.

Institutional investors, those who invest more than $1 million, made up the biggest chunk of UAE transactions with 59 per cent, while professional investors ($10,000 to $1 million) were at 39 per cent and retail investors (up to $10,000) were at 2 per cent, the data showed.

“The UAE, in general, is very advanced and sophisticated in [cryptocurrency] use cases and is probably one of the few markets where decentralised finance is more relevant than centralised exchanges, demonstrating that the level of sophistication is pretty high,” Mr Gronager said.

Updated: May 16, 2024, 3:00 AM

Related Topics:Bitcoin cryptocurrency technology

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Crypto

Better Cryptocurrency to Buy Now and Hold for 10 Years: XRP vs. Bitcoin

Published

10 hours ago

February 14, 2026

Press Room

Better Cryptocurrency to Buy Now and Hold for 10 Years: XRP vs. Bitcoin

Key Points

Bitcoin’s most important features probably won’t change much between now and 2036.
XRP’s feature set will need to change and expand considerably during the same period if it’s going to flourish.
Both coins could be good investments.
10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin ›

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) aren’t trying to win in the same game. One is competing to be the store of value asset that people trust when governments are printing money. The other is vying to be useful plumbing inside institutional financial workflows.

During the next 10 years, those two assets are thus likely to perform very differently. Let’s examine the case for buying and holding each of them, and figure out which one is better.

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Image source: Getty Images.

Bitcoin doesn’t need to change much to succeed

Bitcoin is one of the few cryptocurrencies that has survived for more than 10 years. Its odds of surviving the next 10 years are quite high, because the features that made it a good investment in the past are still operating on behalf of holders.

Specifically, Bitcoin’s supply is as constrained as ever. New coin issuance is cut in half on a regular schedule, and the supply is capped at 21 million coins (about 20 million already are in circulation). That isn’t going to change, which means as long as there is at least some demand, its price is biased to the upside over the long term. Its legacy as a store of value, while still in its infancy, is more likely to consolidate than peter out as time passes.

Furthermore, Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with a majority share of total crypto market value, which means it’s the default yardstick for the whole sector. Owning Bitcoin as part of a balanced crypto portfolio is thus a bet that its prominence and dominance will stay intact even in the event of some future ugly years, just as it did in the past.

Of course, that didn’t stop holders from experiencing downturns of 80% or more, but Bitcoin’s price can fluctuate tremendously without compromising the coin’s investment thesis.

XRP’s moat isn’t as large

For XRP to win during the next 10 years as it did during the past 10 years, there will need to be wider adoption of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) across three axes: as a payments and settlement network, as a tokenized asset management platform, and as a set of financial tools for institutional investors and traders. It’s making credible inroads in those arenas, and it will likely succeed in at least one of them.

But compared to Bitcoin, the trouble with XRP is that it simply has a lot of competition in all three of those verticals today, and there will probably be even more competition in the near future and beyond. The coin could thus bid to become the future of cryptocurrency, only to lose later on when other players encroach on its turf.

That makes it hard to believe that XRP can see its price rise smoothly without continuously winning at least some of its many competitive fights over time — and continuous execution is a very high bar to clear during a 10-year time span.

So, Bitcoin is the better cryptocurrency to invest in if you’re willing to hold it for a long time. XRP isn’t a bad pick. It’s just that it will have to face and overcome many difficult obstacles, while Bitcoin simply doesn’t need to.

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Crypto

Better Cryptocurrency to Buy Now and Hold for 10 Years: XRP vs. Bitcoin | The Motley Fool

Published

22 hours ago

February 14, 2026

Press Room

Better Cryptocurrency to Buy Now and Hold for 10 Years: XRP vs. Bitcoin | The Motley Fool

Both these assets have earned their place as leaders, but the next 10 years could be tough for one of them.

Bitcoin (BTC +3.22%) and XRP (XRP +6.34%) aren’t trying to win in the same game. One is competing to be the store of value asset that people trust when governments are printing money. The other is vying to be useful plumbing inside institutional financial workflows.

During the next 10 years, those two assets are thus likely to perform very differently. Let’s examine the case for buying and holding each of them, and figure out which one is better.

Image source: Getty Images.

Bitcoin doesn’t need to change much to succeed

Today’s Change

(3.22%) $2168.69

Current Price

$69455.00

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$1.4T

Day’s Range

$67217.00 – $70434.00

52wk Range

$60255.56 – $126079.89

Volume

46B

Of course, that didn’t stop holders from experiencing downturns of 80% or more, but Bitcoin’s price can fluctuate tremendously without compromising the coin’s investment thesis.

XRP’s moat isn’t as large

Today’s Change

(6.34%) $0.09

Current Price

$1.46

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$89B

Day’s Range

$1.37 – $1.47

52wk Range

$1.14 – $3.65

Volume

2.6B

Crypto

Financial expert weighs economy outlook, cautious investors and cryptocurrency’s latest

Published

1 day ago

February 13, 2026

Press Room

Financial expert weighs economy outlook, cautious investors and cryptocurrency’s latest

WASHINGTON (7News) — Recent positive economic indicators have come out like a lower-than-expected January inflation rate and a strong jobs report. Financial expert Ric Edelman explained the resilience of the economy and what’s going on with cryptocurrency.

“It’s proving to be surprisingly resilient. The jobs data was very good that just came out, unemployment rate remains low. Interest rates are stable and hopefully coming down. Overall, consumer prices are doing okay as well,” said Eldelman.

RELATED | Job growth beats forecast. Is the economy rebounding?

“A lot of folks have been widely fearing a recession. It doesn’t seem to be in sight at any moment, but there are continuing concerns: the tariffs, global economics. And in fact, if you look closely at the jobs data, almost all the jobs created in this last report were in the healthcare sector, which doesn’t spell well for the overall economy, just that one sector. So there is some weakness, and this is why investors remain a little bit nervous,” said Eldelman.

Younger Americans are buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, seeing it as a path to the American dream.

“This particular crypto winter, as it’s called. It’s the ninth time Bitcoin has fallen this much. Came out of nowhere, and it surprised everybody, including me,” said Eldelman.

“We basically are seeing a tale of two cities. On the one hand, prices are down dramatically over the past couple of months. They may fall even further yet. But if you look beyond the numbers at the fundamental growth and development of the technology, it’s all looking really very exciting.”

For investors, Eldelman had the following advice:

This is a period of extreme uncertainty… And for that reason, you should do two things. Number one, continue invest slowly but steadily. In other words, not a single lump sum, but invest a little bit every month on a regular basis. And second, stay focused on 10 years from now, not 10 days from now.