The blockchain/crypto week in quotes

“The biggest and most immediate regulatory hurdle we face is the lack of specific guidance from the SEC on how to classify various crypto assets. We believe many are clearly currencies and commodities, and there needs to be more specificity on what are really securities. This can unlock a lot of market activity, and also clearly enable the growth of a market for crypto-based securities.” Jeremy Allaire, CEO and Co-founder, Circle

“After Bitcoin’s leap to $4,000 earlier this week, it seems that we’re now seeing a reversal of this surge which in turn, is also causing XRP and Ethereum’s price to fall. While Bitcoin was unable to hold on to Sunday’s momentum, it’s important to remember that this price decline still remains within the broader $3,000 – $5,000 range, meaning the significance of this should not be overstated.” Mati Greenspan, Senior Market Analyst, eToro

“Decentralisation is about freedom, flexibility, and choice and blockchain is just one more tool; one that can help in decentralised contexts, but a tool is always less important than the goal.” Ricardo J. Méndez, Technical Director, Samsung NEXT

“Whilst those within the crypto space are perennially optimistic on the long term success of the sector and hopeful of a solid recovery in 2019, broader macro-economic factors could interfere with these plans with various well documented issues rumbling on and showing no definitive end in sight. If this is the case and global markets come under pressure, then there is argument to say that risk adversity will increase and this could suppress expected investment levels into the sector, thereby stifling its growth.

One thing is for certain, 2019 is going to be another year of blockchain being talked about, written about and gaining more traction in the wider media and this will naturally lead to more widespread education on exactly what it is and how it is going to benefit and change our futures.” David Thomas, Director and Co-Founder, GlobalBlock

“With our lives getting more digitised, it gives scammers greater incentive to generate extortion schemes regarding private and corporate data. There are lots of schemes out there where criminals try to blackmail people seeking cryptocurrency. Often, the criminals don’t actually have any real data and are just looking for victims who will be scared into paying anyway. The thing is, these scams are so cheap to put out there. Even if just a few people fall for the scheme, it’s profitable for the scammers.” Yaya J. Fanusie, senior fellow at the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance

“Bitcoin is certainly the OG crypto! It’s hard to defeat network effects, so in terms of ‘hard money’ (i.e., store of value) Bitcoin is most likely the winner in the long-term.” Cameron Winklevoss

“Cryptocurrencies will probably die as a “complete load of nonsense…The bubble has already started to collapse and maybe we should just see how far this collapse goes, and what is left when we’ve reached a new kind of equilibrium.” European Central Bank policy maker Ardo Hansson 

“Nobody had any expectation of the size of the press that was going to happen around Kodak doing a blockchain. It was never intended that we were doing a coin to raise $150 million to fund a startup. We certainly got thrown into that, because that’s what the market was looking for, and that’s what they thought ICOs were about. Out of the gate, we’ve always said, those were securities, and we’re a payment mechanism.

Hopefully what we’re able to demonstrate is that one year later, all these ICOs who knew everything about everything . . . where are they today? We’re here today, and we’ve got a project and we’re generating revenue. And we’re just getting started.” KODAKOne Co-founder Cam Chell

“The European Banking Authority (EBA) advises the European Commission to carry out a cost/benefit analysis to assess, on a holistic basis, whether EU-level action is appropriate and feasible at this stage to address the crypto-asset issues identified in this report.” EBA report on crypto regulation