The blockchain/crypto week in quotes

“I see Bitcoin at a million dollars someday.” IBM’s VP of Blockchain Jesse Lund

“Cumberland’s new single dealer platform, Marea, was likely created as a result of huge market demand for these products and services, allowing end users access to single or multi-asset trading and direct trading with the cryptocurrency market maker.

Shifting away from the traditional method of making deals over the phone, Marea will make it much more convenient and transparent for participants via the technology platform. In addition to providing users with complete oversight of all variables and helping them to maintain control, using this type of platform also provides an auditable trail for OTC transactions as regulators get more and more interested in the sector. Traditionally, the OTC market has operated on this basis of undisclosed prices but preempting increased regulatory scrutiny on institutional traders, the single dealer platform could prove to be a beneficial insurance policy.

Cumberland is one of the first OTC companies to do this but there is room for many more as something like Marea becomes an accepted standard.” Vaibhav Kadikar, Founder & CEO, CloseCross

“While blockchain technology has been long touted for its security, under certain conditions it can  be quite vulnerable. Sometimes shoddy execution can be blamed, or unintentional software bugs. Other times it’s more of a grey area – the complicated result of interactions between the code, the economics of the blockchain, and human greed. That’s been known in theory since the technology’s beginning. Now that so many blockchains are out in the world, we are learning what it actually means, often the hard way.” MIT Technology Review

“Bitcoin’s structure is quite brilliant and digital currency is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk

“With this deal, BBVA reasserts its firm commitment to both sustainable financing and new technologies. Using DLT for this transaction allowed us to simplify the processes and streamline the negotiation time frames, which is in line with our pursuit of excellence in customer service.” Juan Garat, BBVA’s Head of Global Sales

“(Blockchain technology) is going to be the biggest change in the history of the world and it’s so exciting. I thought the internet was super exciting, but this is going to completely change everything and the government itself is going to change.” Tim Draper

“At its heart JPM Coin appears to be little more than a stablecoin where effectively an individual or entity can exchange one US Dollar for one JPM Coin which they can redeem at any point for a guaranteed value of the notional $1. It is expected to speed up transactions within the JPMorgan network but ultimately some would argue that their solution is just called “banking” and that effectively JPMorgan are entering the space with a solution which is effectively already passed its sell by date, and not harnessing the true power of what other blockchain projects already do.

When all is said and done and irrespective of what it actually does or doesn’t do, the simple act of announcing something like this is great for demonstrating that views are changing and big players are active in the space. It will also do wonders for expanding the thirst for education in the space which for us is one of the key barriers right now to making the crypto and blockchain market grow along with regulation which we all know is also imminently upon us. Exciting times!” David Thomas, Director and Co-Founder, GlobalBlock