Chamath Palihapitiya. Source: Bloomberg
Host of the popular podcast “All In” and seasoned venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has been a long-time believer in fledgling companies and causes. During his career, Palihapitiya has invested in successful companies such as Slack and Yammer. For the past few years, Palihapitiya has championed Bitcoin and its march to 200k to the world of venture capitalists.
He has also been a senior executive at Facebook in its early days, a far cry from his teenage years spent working at Burger King.
As reported by CNBC, Palihapitiya expressed his disappointment in the current state of the crypto industry. According to Palihapitiya, the future of crypto lies elsewhere, due mostly to the actions taken by regulators.
“Crypto is dead in America. “You had Gensler even blaming the banking crisis on crypto. The United States authorities have firmly pointed their guns at crypto (companies). They were probably the ones that were the most threatening to the establishment. And they were the ones that, in fairness to the regulators, did push the boundaries more than any other sector of the startup economy.”
Although Palihapitiya has expressed his dismay at the current state of affairs, he has made it clear that he still believes in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies at large.
However, the future growth of the industry lies elsewhere, whether in Europe, Asia, or the world at large, an opinion also expressed by Republican stalwarts such as Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, who lambasted SEC Chairman Gary Gensler during a testimony before Congress.
“Regulation by enforcement is not sufficient nor sustainable. “You’re punishing digital asset firms for allegedly not adhering to the law when they don’t know it will apply to them, (…) driving innovation overseas and endangering American competitiveness.”
In turn, Gensler has decided to stick to his guns and apply for more funding in order to police “the wild west that is crypto.”
Consequences to the SEC’s actions have already started to surface, as firms like Coinbase and Bittrex have allegedly started making contingency plans for a move abroad.
Both firms – as well as countless other firms across the industry – have repeatedly expressed their will to be compliant and join the larger world of financial services as equals. Unfortunately, they cannot ensure complete compliance in the absence of well-defined laws pertaining to cryptocurrencies.
