Note that other factors are also affecting the reputation of digital assets today. Most prominent among them is the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the country’s main financial regulator. In 2023, the activity of its representatives managed to lead to the prohibition of staking on the Kraken platform for Americans and the suspension of the release of BUSD stabelcoin from Paxos and Binance.

However, the regulator’s staff doesn’t stop there. Last night, Commission chairman Gary Gensler said that cryptocurrency exchanges may “not be qualified custodians” or platforms that have the right to hold users’ assets. Here’s his quote.

Given the way cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms typically operate, investment advisers today cannot count on them as qualified custodians. To be clear: claims by crypto platforms that they are qualified custodians do not mean that they really are.

And this could be taken as a hint that US cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase could be banned from holding users’ crypto-assets. How the trading platforms will work then is unknown, but in that case the exchanges will clearly not stop operating without an appropriate court case.

Also at the end of February, Forbes journalists created problems for the coin industry. For some reason, they decided to compare the cryptocurrency exchange Binance to FTX, whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly used customer funds for his own purposes. Binance chief executive Changpen Zhao reacted to the event and made it clear that in this particular case, the publication’s representatives most likely do not understand the principles of the trading platform.

What is hindering the popularity of cryptocurrencies?

In an interview with Decrypt journalists at an event called NFT Paris, Siu voiced the following line.

Hate towards crypto is a predominantly Western narrative. It is prevalent in America and Europe. There is no such thing in Asia. And I think it’s about people’s attitude towards capitalism.

Many countries in Asia have gone through a difficult process of change from one social and political system to another, including socialism. The advantages of capitalism over other models of society are clearer to its inhabitants than to many citizens of the USA or Europe, where capitalism has dominated for centuries.

Recently, however, many Europeans and Americans have been concerned about economic and social inequalities – even in spite of their relatively high standards of living. This is especially true for the younger generation, whose members openly despise billionaires. It is for them that crypto looks like a “red rag”, Siu believes. He continues.

Blockchain is one of the few technology projects that actually has a political system built into it. It is a capitalist liberal view of the world. People who are involved in cryptocurrencies, even if they don’t think of it that way… believe in a kind of stakeholder capitalism and a sharing economy in which we can share value.

So digital assets have begun to be wrongly associated with the worst manifestations of capitalism. This system definitely has flaws, but it is cryptocurrencies that can solve them and change the vision of capitalist relations in the West. According to Siu, crypto “will change the view of democracy”, which is essentially a direct reference to the so-called DAO.

A DAO is a decentralised, autonomous blockchain-based organisation that operates through smart contracts and does not require centralised management. This organisation allows participants to make decisions collectively and execute them automatically through code, providing transparency and decentralisation in the management of financial and other assets. In theory, this is one of the best forms of freedom and democracy, although problems can arise here as well.


The most recent malfunction occurred when voting on the possible launch of a decentralised exchange, Uniswap, based on the BNB Chain blockchain. UNI token holders and part-time members of the decentralised organisation in question were involved in the process. In the end, representatives of crypto fund Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) voted against the proposal in line with their own interests. The public did not like it, as the idea of moving the platform to a new network was promising in theory. Well a16z received a portion of criticism, although its management had every right to vote for a certain decision given the availability of UNI tokens. Read more about the story in a separate article.


Do the banks really care about what’s going on? Yes, because at least 20 percent of all banks in the world have some form of connection to cryptocurrencies, reports Cointelegraph. According to a recent report from the Bank for International Settlements, 17 Group 1 banks reported a prudential position in crypto assets worth around €2.9 billion and cryptocurrency asset management of €1 billion.

Let’s explain the obscure terms. Group 1 are banks with equity capital above the €3 billion mark and active internationally. Prudential position is a concept in finance that describes the maximum acceptable level of risk for a bank when lending or investing in other companies or financial instruments.

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These 17 banks make up just under 20 per cent of the total banks analysed by BIS analysts. Eleven of them are located in the Americas, four in Europe, and two more in other parts of the world. And while many large financial institutions interact with crypto, the volume of such interaction remains negligible compared to the total amount of money managed by banks.


We believe the association of cryptocurrencies with capitalism is no accident, as digital assets are known for their ability to grow in value, and early investors are actually making a fortune in them. However, crypto also has far more important features in the form of decentralisation and independence from the authorities, limited supply or deflation, and fixed rates of issuance. So as coins become more popular, their perception among ordinary people will gradually change one way or another, which will clearly benefit the industry.


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