An executive with Blockfi says that “this year has been a huge year for mainstream consumer demand into crypto.” Noting that fear of missing out (FOMO) will be a huge driver for investors, the executive expects some regulatory clarity next year.
Crypto FOMO Will Drive Investments in 2022
Flori Marquez, Blockfi’s co-founder and senior vice president of operations, discussed the future outlook for cryptocurrency going into 2022 in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live Friday.
Founded in 2017, Blockfi was created to provide credit services to markets with limited access to simple financial products. The crypto-focused financial services firm has institutional backing from investors, including Valar Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Fidelity, Akuna Capital, Sofi, and Coinbase Ventures.
“It’s been a huge year for crypto,” she began. While acknowledging that the price of bitcoin has dipped slightly, she put it in perspective: “If you look at year over year returns for bitcoin, bitcoin has returned, as of today, 112%. And when you compare that to gold and S&P respectively, that’s a negative 4% and 24%. So, year over year, it has been volatile in the last 30 days. But it’s still a great investment for people who were participating a year ago.” The executive described:
I can say that this year has been a huge year for mainstream consumer demand into crypto.
“We’ve seen huge moves in terms of American consumers being interested in this type of asset class,” she added.
Discussing the outlook for the cryptocurrency market going into 2022, she pointed out that “if we look at Blockfi numbers alone, over the last three years, we had 10,000 clients at the end of the [first] year, 100,000 clients at the end of the [following] year, and this year, we’re going to have over 500,000 clients by the end of this year.”
The executive detailed, “Looking into 2022, I really think that we’re going to see three things,” elaborating:
The first is we’re going to see more consumers across the U.S. enter the space for the first time. And I think a huge driver is going to be FOMO [fear of missing out].
“So we’re going into the holiday season. People are going to be talking about the new things that they’ve been investing in this year. And I do think that crypto has become a bit more digestible for the average consumer than it was five years ago,” she opined.
Secondly, she thinks that we are going to see “recycling of talent,” noting that a lot of people are switching jobs because of the Covid-19 pandemic. She added that the crypto and fintech fields have been a huge attractor to people.
Lastly, she believes we are going to see some regulatory clarity in the crypto space next year, stating:
I think we’ll see in 2022 … some regulatory clarity. There’s been a lot of work being done in terms of working with regulators to understand what needs to happen to allow this sector to continue to grow. And I’m hopeful that we’ll see that next year.
“My understanding is that the regulators right now have two main things that they’re focused on,” she continued. “They’re looking at consumer protection, and they’re also focused on keeping innovation in the U.S.”
The executive concluded: “I also believe that regulatory clarity will allow many companies that are building in crypto to build with more clarity, which will help us be hopefully safer for consumers in the long run. And it’ll also help with that mainstream adoption because consumers will feel safer knowing that the regulators are also in this space.”
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