Dan Roberts of Yahoo Finance joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss how President Biden impacted cyrptocurrency and what his election means for Bitcoin’s wild ride.
Video transcription
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SEANA SMITH: Crypto certainly had a great run. But of course, the question now is: what does a Biden government mean for the future of space? We want to bring Dan Roberts, who, as always, keeps up with the news for us.
And Dan, we heard from Janet Yellen earlier today, signaling some concerns about encryption. But what do you think – I think, how do you think a Biden government is likely to address cryptography?
DAN ROBERTS: Yes, well, let’s start with Janet Yellen, Seana. She mentioned today that she doesn’t like cryptocurrency being used for illicit financing. She said that in the past. But of course, now, given the price increase we saw with encryption, there will be more attention than ever in your comments.
She mentioned the fact that it is used for crime. Of course, the US dollar is also sometimes used for crime. She said in the past, Janet Yellen said, that she just isn’t a fan of cryptocurrency. She doesn’t see it as a legal tender or a store of value. And that was a few years ago. Maybe that will change.
Apart from Yellen, who you might think she and her views would be pessimistic about how the Biden administration could handle cryptography, you have Gary Gensler, who is Joe Biden’s choice for the SEC chair. And Gary Gensler is very friendly with cryptocurrencies.
He is the former president of the CFTC, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. And he testified before Congress several times about cryptography and said positive things. He told Congress not to rush to over-regulate cryptocurrency and not to rush with the rules that govern that space.
He and some of his associates now – some of the people on Biden’s transition team – also said they encouraged the type of regulation of Facebook’s Libra token as a headline. Well, people who use encryption will not like the idea that it can be labeled as a security guard. But Gary Gensler and others said that Libra should be promoted and encouraged and that regulators should allow it to be developed.
So you know, on the SEC side, that could be very good. And that will come into play with two main things. First, you have Coinbase’s IPO coming up. Can regulators handle this? We’ll see. And then, of course, you have the SEC charges dropped on the penultimate day of ex-SEC Jay Clayton’s administration against the company Ripple.
The SEC saying it was an offer of unregistered securities. Well, once Gary Gensler takes over, that could change. Could the SEC reach some kind of agreement with Ripple about the XRP token.
ADAM SHAPIRO: Hey, Dan, real quick, with just a minute left, Ether really showed up today, not so much Bitcoin. What is this about? Is it that everyone wants encryption?
DAN ROBERTS: Well, there are a few things there, Adam. I’m glad you asked. Yes, earlier this morning, Ether peaked at around 1,400. You know, if you’ve analyzed the trading volume recently, the actual trading volume, in terms of dollars in transactions on Ethereum – that Ethereum blockchain, which is separate from the Bitcoin blockchain – is really heated up in the last few weeks. And that happens with the number of dollars traded on the Bitcoin blockchain in terms of the daily average.
Now, of course, Bitcoin, you have a much higher price there and an increase in price in the past few weeks. But look, I think that whenever you see a big spike in Bitcoin, you will see a lot of activity with cryptocurrency number two. And that is Ether.
You know, one thing I like to say is, as we know, there are tens of thousands of these altcoins. But for now, the way things have been going, the way companies are doing, there’s a kind of Bitcoin and there’s Ethereum and then there’s everything else. Those are one and two. And these are the only two currencies that I would say with absolute certainty that they will remain around for years to come. They are not going anywhere.
SEANA SMITH: Okay, Dan Roberts, thank you so much for breaking this for us.