Nasdaq CEO reveals optimistic view on cryptocurrencies ahead of Bitcoin futures launch

Nasdaq president and CEO Adena Friedman has predicted that cryptocurrency could still become “a global currency of the future.”

Friedman, 50, claimed that cryptocurrency “deserves an opportunity to find a sustainable future in our economy,” before going on to reveal her optimistic stance on digital assets via a LinkedIn post.

Her comments come ahead of Nasdaq’s highly anticipated launch of Bitcoin futures, which is expected to go live “in the first half of 2019.”

Bitcoin futures on Nasdaq will use the exchange’s SMARTS technology, which will be used to combat price manipulation and suspicious trading behaviour.

This could bode well for the upcoming VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF deadline, with the SEC set to make a decision on February 27th. The regulator has rejected applications in the past, citing price manipulation and fraud as primary reasons.

Nasdaq’s CEO went on to review Bitcoin’s life cycle in her LinkedIn post, stating that it has “gone through the first phase of the classic invention cycle,” after being touted by early pioneers before being followed by hype then a dose of reality.

She added: “What comes next is one of two outcomes:

1) Either the innovation finds practical utility followed by years of steady and sustainable commercial progress and integration into the economic fabric (e.g., the Internet); or

2) The invention fails to achieve broad adoption and its commercial applications as medium of exchange are limited (e.g., the Segway).

However, it is difficult to ignore the huge amount that investors, including some of the most sophisticated global investors, have poured into digital currencies in recent years.”

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