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April 24, 2023 • Issue 23:04:02

Crypto's lingering winter chill

One reason for the variation in opinions may be the rela-
tively small number of Americans who dabble in crypto.
Just 17 percent of those surveyed by Pew said they had ever
invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency, which is mostly
unchanged from 2021 and 2022, the researchers said.
Regulatory wake-up call, or Choke Point 2.0?

Regulators have been forced to act, in part because of the
failures of crypto exchange FTX and three banks that had
strong ties to crypto: Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank
and Signature Bank.

"We want to make sure there are safeguards in place," Ro-
hit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, said in an April 3 interview with Yahoo Finance.
Chopra is a member of the Financial Stability Oversight
Council, created by the Dodd-Frank Act to identify risks to
economic stability posed by financial services firms. It's up
By Patti Murphy to the FSOC's 11 voting members (all financial regulators)
to come up with ways to put safeguards in place so that a
t may be Spring in most parts of the United States, meltdown akin to the financial crisis of 2008 doesn't hap-
but in the world of cryptocurrency it's a cold winter. pen.
Cryptocurrency has come under attack on many
I fronts, with plummeting values, corporate and bank "It [crypto] has gotten big enough to garner attention," said
failures, and threats of legislative and regulatory actions. Larry Pruss, managing director, strategic resource man-
agement, at consulting firm SRM. But, he added, "I worry
Yet, according to a survey by financial technology firm we're going to over-regulate this."
Paxos, three-quarters (75 percent) of consumers remain
confident about the future of crypto. In fact, among the "It's hard not to perceive what's going on as effectively anti-
5,000 adult Americans surveyed on behalf of Paxos in Janu- crypto," said industry attorney Atlas. "Its' sad, really." Three
ary 2023, 72 percent said they had little or no concern about of the closed banks were "supporting very innovative pay-
the volatility experienced in crypto markets over the past ments businesses. It wasn't crypto businesses that brought
year. down those banks. It was how those banks were run," Atlas
said.
"Despite fears that the rocky end to 2022 would have a
chilling effect on consumer crypto adoption, the research
shows that consumers are looking for more integration of
crypto into their financial lives, not less," said Mike Co- Contributed articles inside by:
cetta, head of revenue at Paxos.

The Paxos survey contrasts markedly with consumer re- Ken Musante ..........................................................................................18
search conducted in March 2023 by the Pew Research Cen- Nick Cuuci................................................................................................28
ter, a nonpartisan think tank. Pew's researchers found that
among adult Americans who have heard of cryptocurren- Geoff Brown ...........................................................................................31
cy, 75 percent are not confident in its safety and reliability. Walter Alolo and Shubham Garg ....................................................33

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