Note that criticism of cryptocurrencies is less common today than usual. The banking industry is going through a downturn, which makes digital assets seem much more secure.

In particular, Caitlin Long, head of Custodia Bank, believes that in this environment Bitcoin’s advantages will be more evident. And this applies to people who have not previously been involved with cryptocurrencies. Read more about the viewpoint here.

Why cryptocurrencies aren’t liked

The president’s administration first started issuing such reports on the economy back in 1950. And now – in 2023 – a section on the topic of digital assets has appeared in the report for the first time. According to Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of investment firm Paradigm, at least 15 percent or about 35 pages of the document are dedicated solely to crypto.

The main argument of the critics is that crypto-assets do not provide the “claimed” benefits of the type of improved payment systems, financial inclusion and the creation of mechanisms for transferring value and intellectual property. Here’s a quote from a publication on the subject.

Instead, the innovation of crypto-assets is mostly about creating artificial scarcity to maintain prices – many of which have no fundamental value.


Of course they don't. The main fundamental value of digital assets is the ability to own and use them without any dependence on government, bankers and officials. In this case, the user gets full control over what happens to their assets along with full ownership rights.

Cryptocurrencies are also a real improvement on existing payment systems. In the already familiar Solana blockchain network, a few seconds are enough to make a value transfer, and the fee for any transfer will not exceed a tenth of a cent. A bank transfer abroad, on the other hand, would take several days and incur huge fees of several percent of the amount. With this in mind, it can be argued that the coverage of cryptocurrencies in this document is untrue and only aims to discredit digital assets in the eyes of people who are not yet familiar with them.


The document also argues that cryptocurrencies cannot serve as sovereign money like the US dollar. The reason is that the value of many cryptocurrencies fluctuates too much to be a stable store of value. They supposedly cannot function as a unit of account or medium of exchange in the economy.

Then again, cryptocurrencies are great for transferring value to a person anywhere in the world and conducting economic activity. As we already know, Bitcoin became official tender in El Salvador in September 2021, and has been very popular there ever since.

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Blockchain Association CEO Christine Smith was disappointed by such comments from the White House. She stated that the US government is simply pushing back on the innovation that digital assets provide. Here’s a relevant quote.

We urge the Biden administration to think about how it will be remembered: as a leader of profound innovation or as an obstacle to the global technological revolution.

This is a very apt rejoinder - also in view of the activities of other power brokers in the country. As we know, the day before, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed several lawsuits against prominent players in the cryptocurrency industry, and also demanded a ban on staking for Americans on the Kraken exchange. At the same time, the regulator itself has not yet developed clear and comprehensible rules for such companies. Accordingly, organizations in the U.S. are essentially forced to act blindly and be ready to be fined at any second. This, of course, is not the best environment for doing business.

According to Cointelegraph’s sources, the report also brings up the issue of decentralisation in the crypto industry. Decentralisation is promoted as a major advantage of crypto, but at the same time, digital assets are traded through a limited number of trading platforms and mining is controlled by a relatively small group of miners.


The bulk of digital asset trading does take place on centralised exchanges like Binance, Coinbase and Kraken. However, there are also decentralised exchanges in the industry that allow you to trade directly from your wallet and not depend on intermediaries. Apparently, the US presidential administration is either unaware of this, or deliberately silent about it.


And yet the decentralization of cryptocurrencies is many times better than what the traditional financial system offers us, which is especially evident today. It is now starting to shake because of the banking crisis in the US. According to Katie Wood, head of investment firm ARK Invest, it is this crisis that will attract more big investors to Bitcoin. Here’s her quote on the matter from an interview with Bloomberg.

The fact that the price of Bitcoin has moved very differently from the stock markets in particular has been quite instructive.

In terms of the impact on Bitcoin’s price of interest from large institutional investors, Wood is still sticking to her target of $1-1.5 million per BTC by 2030. As a reminder, this target is based on an analysis of the distribution of BTC among professional investors, according to which most companies allocate between 2.5 and 6.5 percent of their investment portfolios to crypto.

As you can see from the chart above, ARK Invest has three big BTC price targets by 2030 in general. In a worst-case scenario, the major cryptocurrency will be worth “only” $238,000 by the target date, the giant’s analysts believe.

Predictions on such a long horizon are a rather complicated thing. In our opinion, don’t count on them, because anything can happen in the digital asset market.


It looks like the US authorities have really decided to fight cryptocurrencies. Previously, it was clear due to strange actions of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but now it has been taken to a new level. However, given the banking crisis and the instability of the traditional financial system, coins have become much more promising. And criticism from officials is unlikely to hinder that.


For more interesting news about crypto and the economy, check out our crypto chat room of ex-wealthy people. There we talk about other interesting topics from the world of decentralisation.