'Virtual Asset President' Elected... "Positive and Optimistic"
US Regulators Expect Appointment of Virtual Asset Experts
Global Banks, Previously Hesitant, Expected to Inflow Funds
At the 'Upbit D Conference (UDC) 2024' held at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul on the 14th, Keith O'Callahan, Head of Asset Management and Structuring at Achax, Justin Kim, Asia Head of Avlabs, Alex Kim, Digital Asset Security Director at Blockdaemon, and Georgios Vlachos, Co-founder of Axelar, were speaking. Photo by Dunamu
The global virtual asset and blockchain industry expects the 'Trump 2.0' administration to provide greater regulatory clarity on virtual assets. Until now, U.S. regulatory agencies were staffed with officials who did not even have 'virtual asset wallets,' but there is now anticipation that experts in the field will directly lead the regulations. In particular, if changes begin in the U.S., it is also expected that governments in Korea and Europe will have no choice but to expedite regulatory improvements.
Keith O'Callahan, Head of Asset Management and Structuring at Achax, said at the 'Upbit D Conference (UDC) 2024' on the 14th, "I have communicated with regulatory agencies before, and I felt a significant lack of trust at that time," adding, "Once the new administration takes office, there will likely be considerable pressure on London, Europe, and Korea as well."
Georgios Vlachos, co-founder of Axela, also said, "I am very positive and optimistic," and added, "Although one should not be overly optimistic in politics, the reason I view this positively is that regulatory issues have existed because U.S. regulators have not utilized this technology."
He continued, "These people have high expertise in their own fields, but most of them have never even installed a blockchain wallet or know how it works. Because of this lack of knowledge, there was no regulatory clarity," he emphasized.
He further stated, "By placing people with relevant knowledge in key positions to raise the basic understanding of the blockchain industry, informed and useful regulatory decisions can be made. If that happens, I believe the regulatory clarity we have been expecting will be secured."
Keith also said, "Many Korean companies I have met so far seem to have had at least one token security issuance (STO) project," adding, "Since many are either conducting or preparing regulatory sandbox programs, I look forward to full-scale movements in 2025."
Michael Casey, former chairman of CoinDesk Consensus and chairman of the Decentralized Artificial Intelligence (AI) Society (DAIS), also evaluated that the mere presence of the next president has increased the industry's expectations for regulatory improvements.
Casey said, "Many U.S. financial institutions wanted to participate but hesitated due to compliance with government laws and regulations," adding, "Now that these issues are disappearing, mainstream institutions like banks will be able to participate more, which will bring in a lot of new capital and enable a much larger system."
However, he cautioned, "Of course, on the other hand, we must be careful," adding, "You should not invest only in one place, like Mt. Gox or Donald Trump."
Mt. Gox is a Japanese virtual asset exchange that went bankrupt in 2014 due to hacking. Mt. Gox was one of the early virtual asset exchanges headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and once accounted for about 70% of all Bitcoin transactions. In 2014, it lost 850,000 Bitcoins of customer entrusted assets and 100,000 Bitcoins it held itself due to hacking, leading to bankruptcy. The bankruptcy proceedings and compensation process are still ongoing. This incident became a representative case that damaged investors' trust in the virtual asset market. Later, the bankruptcy of FTX, the world's third-largest virtual asset exchange in 2022, further worsened the virtual asset market.
Casey added, "We must save ourselves and create a system that is not vulnerable," and said, "Now that virtual asset regulatory issues have been somewhat resolved, how to solve future problems remains a challenge."
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