what's next for cryptocurrency

crypto as Bitcoin boom continues

 

 

the largest cryptocurrency exchange is going public coinbase confidentially filing for a public offering last night marking an industry milestone the company did not say how it will structure its offering in particular coinbase has more than 35 million verified users in more than 100 countries and more than 25 billion dollars in assets on its cryptocurrency platform it's raised more than 500 million dollars from backers including andreessen horowitz tiger global management y combinator greylock partners and others now the coinbase ipo comes amid a record-breaking run for bitcoin prices which broke through the 23 000 mark a day after hitting the 20 000 mark joining us now is brian brooks acting comptroller of the currency brian is also the former chief legal officer at coinbase brian thanks for being here with us what exactly in particular has got you the most interested about the recent price action in bitcoin well let me tell you something dom i i can't speak to the specific price movement but i'll tell you what i'm worried about is that all of this is happening in an environment where we're about to have a change of presidential administrations and there's calls on capitol hill to dismantle some of the regulatory protections we put in place for this stuff so you think about the fact that my agency has tried to make it safer for people to custody in national banks we've talked about banks supporting some of these stablecoin projects if those protections aren't in place i really worry about the environment for these kinds of things so so that's what i'm most focused on is how do we preserve the safety for people who participate in that market so so i mean the perspective that you bring is interesting you've been on the side of coinbase before you're now working for the government what exactly is the future for crypto currencies given the construct that we're seeing with government entities and the need to regulate this kind of environment well dom we're at a really critical inflection point right now is what i would tell you it's kind of a fork in the road so one path forward is that we find ways of addressing money laundering risks and we find ways of addressing terrorism financing which i think can be done but we make this safe for the consumers and investors who participate that's why the banking system has such an important role to play but the other path which is a very real potential here is that we politicize some of these tech issues whether it's crypto or fintech more broadly we politicize it by undoing all of the good work this administration has done to make it safer okay to make it more real and if we do those things as for example chairwoman maxine waters letter recently suggested then i'm not sure if we have enough of a foundation to move forward here so it's all about consolidating regulatory gains and consumer protections that we've tried to put in place here that's got to stick around so so how exactly then do you make it safer for not just the investors but the people who are trying to traffic or use bitcoin to make transactions i i wonder whether or not the stuff that you're seeing right now with price action makes it that you have to put more of the kind of compliance impetus on the companies or more of the regulatory policing on the government well there's a role for both i i think right so there are there are bad actors in this space as there are in other spaces and the role of the government is to make sure that markets are well regulated and well organized so the people who are transacting know that they're transacting with good people and not bad people part of that means that as in any financial market there has to be tracing and no anonymity but part of it also is that if you hold crypto or if you're in any other space like this you need to know that you're not going to lose it so that's why it's important to people that they'd be able to custody their assets in a bank for example the same as you might custody your stock certificates or any other assets that you own and again this is a real political debate right now people may not realize this but there's leadership in congress who's urging the incoming biden administration to roll back some of those protections i think in the name of politics not in the name of protecting investors so if that's the case then i mean we're we're watching what's happening right now with coinbase you know trying to kind of come up with an ipo and it's being scrutinized by all different regulators you're in the office of the comptroller of the currency that actually kind of implies that there is a banking angle to this whole thing is it is it fair to say that cryptocurrency is going to be considered like a banking type product in the in the coming years well i think the way to really think about it is cryptocurrencies are tokens that power networks right that's what blockchains are is their networks and in the future the role that banks really have is managing payment networks as they've always done crypto's a different kind of payment network in that it's faster and it's cheaper and bitcoin and other tokens they're they're assets that reside on those networks but at the end of the day all of us make our payments on payment networks when you swipe your credit card at the coffee bar this morning you're using a payment network so if we clamp down on these things in ways that aren't safe those networks can't really be allowed to go forward and what we need to do is preserve the safety of the network while also preserving you know the value of the asset those things have to happen in town shepard smith here thanks for watching cnbc on youtube