It is imperative that the crypto asset industry up its game as there’s still a great deal of concern in respect to legitimacy or even purpose.
This comes even at a time when several well-known household institutional names are entering crypto.
But there are more than just signs that the mood is changing, with even some of the diehard naysayers starting to accept that bitcoin and crypto assets are here to stay.
The regulators are slowly introducing new rules. For example, in the U.S. the SEC is looking to impose greater know-your-customer rules on crypto wallet providers. France, a vocal advocate of the emerging blockchain technology and digital asset space, is looking to implement anonymity measures to fight money laundering activity.
Being a publicly listed company naturally provides an extra level of transparency and today there are quite a few digital asset focused public companies ranging from bitcoin miners, crypto investment companies and brokerage firms that allow investors to buy and sell crypto.
Through the end of 2020 and into early 2021, bitcoin continued its stratospheric rise, showing further evidence that investors are hungry for alternative assets. When traditional markets were closed for public holidays, people had time to read, research and act.
This is a trend we expect to continue well into the future. As people become more accepting of the digital asset space and adoption increases, more crypto-based businesses will pursue IPOs and become public companies. This process should become a self-fulfilling prophecy, bringing a greater proportion of the space under the regulatory regimes of stock exchanges and allowing anyone to dig deep into the business, providing greater scrutiny.
But this expansion will present regulators across the globe with multiple challenges. As bitcoin and other crypto-assets are borderless, it allows brokers to expand quickly, providing secure trading platforms to meet the demand of wider adoption. Regulatory hurdles will be overcome as we are already seeing forward-thinking central banks and established regulators embracing this new asset class and the underlying technology. By working with regulators, established crypto businesses and in particular publicly listed operations can help forge the way for the industry.
