The language used by fintech experts looking back on 2022 tends to be apocalyptic. Spurred on by this year’s high profile crypto company implosions including FTX, cryptocurrency prices have taken a steep dive since the beginning of the year, with the overall market value of the world’s crypto funds plummeting from $3 trillion to less than a third of that. Combined with steep interest rate hikes from the Fed and tightening regulations around the world, some fear that crypto may not survive long into 2023.
Naturally, there are also those who see a way forward for cryptocurrency. According to James Malcolm, an industry veteran and a strategist at USB, crypto may well be a key investment for decades to come, if perhaps not as dominant a product as it has been for the last few years.
“It’s wrong to say this thing is going to curl up and die completely because there are elements of it which can be useful in other areas, and there is probably a modest cryptocurrency market which will continue to thrive on the margin of financial markets,” said Malcolm in a recent interview.
Categorizing crypto as “an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary development in financial markets,” Malcolm predicted that crypto will persist as a niche asset on the fringes of financial markets. Meanwhile, blockchain and other important Web3 infrastructure will likely spark further developments that may leave a more lasting mark on the global financial landscape.
