The crypto sector’s turmoil in 2022 will see the technology pass to “more regulated and established institutions,” according to Circle’s chief strategy officer.
Dante Disparte, Circle’s chief strategy officer and head of global policy, believes that the recent turmoil in the crypto sector may herald the transfer of crypto technology to more durable companies and “steadier hands” in 2023.
Disparte highlighted the growing use of cryptocurrency in the financial services sector in a Jan. 2 post for The World Economic Forum (WEF), opining that the ongoing bear market and exchange collapses may ultimately be a boon for the industry, paving the way for “responsible, always-on internet finance.”
“Perhaps 2022 will mark a handover of crypto technology and blockchain infrastructure to steadier hands, just as the dot-com bubble bursting in the early 2000s handed over the future of the internet to more durable companies, business models, and use cases,” he said.
Disparte was speaking from his position at Circle, the company behind the USD Coin stablecoin. He is also a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Digital Currency Governance Consortium.
Disparte also stated in the blog post that cryptography and blockchain will remain a “integral” part of the “modern economic toolkit,” despite the “terrible year” for crypto, which he described as more akin to a crypto “ice age” than a winter.
Last year was a rough one for cryptocurrency, with one of the worst bear markets on record and the collapse of several major platforms.
Despite these setbacks, Disparte believes that mainstream financial services will look to crypto at some point because “the technology remains a protagonist in the global financial world.”
“Indeed, watch what the big banks and mature financial services firms do, not what they say, as a test of the staying power of digital assets and blockchains at the core of financial services (and other areas of the global economy),” Disparte added.
According to the Bitcoin Obituaries Archive, the end of Bitcoin has now been announced more than 460 times, and despite some high-profile resistance from mainstream financial services, some of the most outspoken critics have begun wading into the crypto waters.
In a Jan. 2 opinion piece for the Diplomatic Courier, Disparte reiterated his stance, calling it “disingenuous” for bankers to criticise cryptocurrency with one hand while attempting to co-opt its innovations with the other.
“To lump together all crypto innovations, the responsible and the irredeemable would be equivalent to dismissing all banking because of Danske Bank’s $230 billion money laundering pipeline,” he argued.
