The price of Bitcoin has increased 76 per cent in the year to date to around US$29,000, despite the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US market regulator, taking action against exchanges Binance US and Coinbase.
Last month, the Financial Times reported the SEC told Coinbase to de-list all crypto-assets from its exchange except for Bitcoin - suggesting it may be the only token deemed not to be an unregistered security, and therefore possibly safe from regulatory impact.
“I would say that it definitely appears to have safe harbour. There is no move from the regulators, no indication, that they would be coming after Bitcoin as a security.” Grainger said.
Meanwhile, institutional interest in Bitcoin was increasing, including from global asset managers BlackRock, Fidelity and Invesco, which were all pushing for spot-price Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
“I think there’s a real belief by institutions that they will be key to driving greater adoption of this.”
However, Grainger said she and her business still received backlash and hesitation, including from banks.
“I think a lot of people perhaps don’t take us seriously.
“But, what I would say to people is ... look at it more strategically, think about how massively the world has digitised over the last couple of decades.”
Regardless, trading volumes of cryptocurrency in New Zealand were lower, as witnessed on Easy Crypto’s retail platform, Grainger said.
“The markets as a whole have been not as active as they were last year or over the last few years.
“But for the main part, it’s just a pretty stable crypto winter that we’re sitting in at the moment.”
Listen to Janine Grainger discuss how Easy Crypto works and her expectations for cryptocurrency regulation and valuation in this episode of Stock Takes.
Stock Takes is available on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes come out every Wednesday and are brought to you with support from Fisher Funds.
