This is a multi-speaker YouTube interview (eToro executives and hosts) about the future of cryptocurrencies. Speakers predict large-scale migration of financial assets to blockchain (claiming over $100 trillion in 10 years), assert Bitcoin will remain dominant and expect widespread millennial ownership, and discuss regulation, custody, institutional adoption, DeFi innovation, cultural diffusion (NFTs, brand campaigns), and blockchain scalability as near-term technical challenges.
Chapters
We're going to see a transfer of over $100 trillion over the next 10 years into native digital assets.
So if we want to move into Bitcoin, we need to have people believe in the morality of decentralizing money.
We believe that most millennials are going to own Bitcoin and crypto assets as part of their investment. When we're thinking about the future, Etoro firmly believes in the combination and connection between crypto assets and equities. So the majority of our clients trade both cryptocurrencies as well as stocks on the platform. So I think that's definitely a trend that we'll see sort of continuing in the future. I think a lot of people will want to manage their investments in one account. We're also big believers in the future of blockchain technology for the back end of finance, and that's going to still take a while. I believe that all financial assets are eventually going to be transformed into the blockchain in one form or another. So we're going to see a transfer of over $100 trillion over the next 10 years into native digital assets.
And I'm curious to know your thoughts on regulations and compliance, because I think that's a huge element in order to actually make this a reality.
We've always been regulated as a securities broker dealer, right? So that's where we started our company, as a regulated investment firm. We always treated crypto as a regulated financial asset. Whether or not it is defined as a regulated financial asset. In some jurisdictions it is, in some it isn't. Doesn't matter. We think, you know, you need to make sure you treat clients fairly, you know how to custody assets. I think there's always a challenge because of the fragmentation in the industry of various regulators. Almost in every country, you have like two or three different regulators trying to figure out under which regulator crypto eventually falls. But I think it's inevitable that we'll see more regulation.
I think Etoro is a bridge between the old world and the new world. We are a fintech company, but we adhere by all rules and regulations. We are regulated in multiple continents, and we always play by the rules. I think that's important. That's the role we have to play to get people into crypto, but in a responsible, compliant way until other macro things that are bigger than us will happen and will take us to a future that is more decentralized.
DeFi is a bit of a wild west right now. No regulation, no real financial institutions, but a lot of amazing innovation. I think we're going to see a lot of that innovation going into traditional or regulated financial institutions, centralized companies to be able to offer that innovation directly to consumers.
I'm assuming it's probably a good thing that we're seeing more institutions come into the space.
100%. It's not just institution, it's not just seeing hedge funds and even companies like Square and whatnot allocated into crypto. It's also the diffusion between pop culture and crypto. So we've seen SNL doing NFT skit now.
What the hell's an nft? Apparently cryptocurrency. Everyone's making so much money. Can you please explain what's happening in nft?
We've seen Chipotle on National Burrito Day giving the prize out in bitcoin that would cause mass adoption. If these brands are talking about crypto, it would cause mass adoption.
What do you hope to see in the crypto space happen? The crypto and blockchain space happen in the next coming years.
I think again, the bitcoin as the king of crypto I think is here to stay. I'll be surprised if we don't see a significant rise in the price of bitcoin Bitcoin over the next three to five years as still 5 billion people in the world that basically don't really have a good local currency. I think smart contracts and everything we're seeing in defi. I think we're just. This is really just the beginning. It's the infancy of how financial services is going to look like in the future. And I think one thing that needs to be solved and hopefully within the next 12 to 18 months is scalability of blockchain protocol. So how can we see large scale like, you know, whether it's Ethereum 2.0 or things like other blockchains. How can we really see that scale to the number of transactions that we're seeing in the traditional industry like Visa and MasterCard?
Money is stories we tell ourselves about the future and it's the fabric that connects all of us in a way. And currently the fiat system is based on number of things that are fundamentally wrong. And so if we want to move into bitcoin, we need to have people believe in the morality of decentralizing money. I think that the moral case of bitcoin and teaching people that it is the right thing to do to basically separate state and money will ultimately create that vision that we all aspire to.
