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- Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said bitcoin-skeptic Rep. Brad Sherman is talking "nonsense" about crypto.
- He said his company is committed to educating 'DC' on all things crypto.
- He said the crypto space is getting more vibrant every day.
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Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz believes the cryptocurrency market needs strong, smart regulation and that educating politicians about the space is a key part of achieving that, he said in a Bloomberg interview Wednesday.
There is already a push from the industry to generate more awareness of what crypto is and what it can do. Fidelity Digital Assets, crypto exchange Coinbase and payments firm Square have group together to try to educate regulators.
In the interview, Novogratz said there was clearly a lot of work to do in educating politicians and regulators alike and, only by doing so effectively, would it be possible to properly regulate the market.
He also touched on the promise of decentralized finance and how people are making money from lending on these platforms.
In the interview, Novogratz discussed the ways institutions are further getting involved in the crypto-sphere and how innovation in the use of assets such as bitcoin, ether, non-fungible tokens (NTFs) and stablecoins is only going to grow.
Here are Novogratz's 10 best quotes from the interview, lightly edited and condensed for clarity:
1. "We know regulation is coming, and regulation in some ways will make the system stronger, what you are hoping is you get smart regulation, which is why I am committed and this community is committed to spending more time in DC and educating people."
2. "You know, listening to the representative [of California, Brad] Sherman, in front of Congress tells me that the bitcoin crypto community needs to do a much, much, much better job educating our officials and our regulators, because, in some ways, he's talking nonsense and he's a representative that gets to regulate over us." On crypto-skeptic Brad Shermanwho has in the past said Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency "may do more to endanger America" than 9/11.
3. "Ethereum, most likely becomes the second biggest or maybe the biggest cryptocurrency one day, but with very different use cases, it's going to be used as the base level of trust."
4. "The amount of innovation that's going to come out, that's being built on top of the ethereum platform or one of these platforms is going to blow your mind away in the next five years."
5. "Nobody thinks that the system is going away. The confidence that the system is getting better and that it's getting more vibrant is growing by the day."
6. "Crypto continues to be the best performing asset class, right the Bloomberg Galaxy crypto index is 90% on the year, think about that relative to the S&P or anything else, lots more volatility but lots more return."
7. "I can tell you that banks are very fascinated with it, they're starting to invest, to experiment, put it into a sandbox, to understand it." On decentralized finance.
8. "This is a serious, serious approach to rebuilding the financial architecture of the world." Talking about bitcoin, ethereum, non-fungible tokens and stablecoins.
9. "I think gold is already being disrupted by bitcoin." On bitcoin as digital gold.
10. "A lot of people are making money lending on these protocols." Talking about DeFi.