Why BTC may be curtailed in the U.S, as per tech entrepreneur Vinny Lingham

• Tech entre­pre­neur Vin­ny Ling­ham dis­cussed at length about reg­u­la­to­ry actions against Coin­base and Binance.
• He believed that BTC may be cur­tailed if it becomes too much of a threat to the dollar.

Tech entre­pre­neur Vin­ny Ling­ham appeared in an inter­view with Jason Cala­ca­n­is on 30 March, where he spoke about the future of cryp­tocur­ren­cy and Bit­coin [BTC] in the U.S. amidst reg­u­la­to­ry actions against Coin­base [BASE] and Binance [BNB].

Vinny Lingham on the SEC

Regard­ing the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion (S.E.C.)’s Wells notice to Coin­base, Ling­ham acknowl­edged that the reg­u­la­to­ry body going after a com­pli­ant indus­try was sur­pris­ing. How­ev­er, it was not an anom­aly, as the body was going after almost every­one. He added that there is a lack of clar­i­ty regard­ing the SEC’s juris­dic­tion; besides, some­body on the reg­u­la­to­ry body must have green-lit Coin­base list­ings at some point.

Ling­ham said that though it doesn’t seem good for Coin­base in the short-term, it is a good thing that this bat­tle is final­ly going to the courts as this would at least give some lev­el of clar­i­ty regard­ing the sta­tus of cryp­to assets in the country.

In response to anoth­er ques­tion, Ling­ham said that he would rather not invest in Coin­base than short it. Regard­ing its dis­mal per­for­mance in recent months, he said that though the mar­ket was bear­ish, there may be renewed inter­est, as evi­denced by the recent rise of Bitcoin’s price.

Jason Cala­ca­n­is high­light­ed a poten­tial cash crunch that could hap­pen at Coin­base. In response, Ling­ham said that Coin­base was focus­ing on too many projects. Instead, it should put its eggs into becom­ing a trad­ing ser­vices provider. It could also bring in more AI to cut down its work­force. As there is low adop­tion, invest­ing in long-term projects was a risky perspective.

Regard­ing Com­mod­i­ty Futures Trad­ing Com­mis­sion (CFTC)’s law­suit against Binance amidst alle­ga­tions of the exchange help­ing cus­tomer cir­cum­vent com­pli­ance con­trols, Ling­ham appre­ci­at­ed the efforts of the body in inves­ti­gat­ing the case. If there is evi­dence against the exchange, then rules should be enforced, said Lingham.

His two cents on Bitcoin

Ling­ham also under­scored the preva­lence of pump-and-dump coins sim­i­lar to pen­ny stocks which the SEC has clamped down upon. If there are more legit coins list­ed on exchanges, it would lead to more clar­i­ty among traders.

Cala­ca­n­is, how­ev­er, said that why these coins got trad­ed is because traders want­ed to trade spec­u­la­tive assets dur­ing the cryp­to boom. Ling­ham argued that unless there are sophis­ti­cat­ed traders, most peo­ple would fal­ter in mak­ing sound invest­ment judge­ments. Cala­ca­n­is argued for a licens­ing regime for those trad­ing in cryp­to assets.

The entre­pre­neur also high­light­ed that if Bitcoin’s val­ue keeps grow­ing and chal­lenges the hege­mo­ny of the US Dol­lar, the author­i­ties will cur­tail Bitcoin’s rise. Regard­ing for­mer Coin­base CTO Bal­a­ji S. Srinivasan’s $1 mil­lion bet on Bit­coin, Ling­ham won­dered if the gov­ern­ment would even allow BTC to soar to this level.

Ling­ham answered in the affir­ma­tive when asked if the U.S. gov­ern­ment doesn’t want Amer­i­can con­sumers to get involved in such a spec­u­la­tive seg­ments amidst a recession.