Here’s What Crypto Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried Thinks About Markets – Have We Bottomed?
Sam Bankman-Fried. Source: a video screenshot, Forbes / YouTube
While many industry observers ask themselves whether the crypto markets have reached their bottom level before they will rebound, Sam Bankman-Fried, the outspoken CEO and founder of major crypto exchange FTX, believes that the coming months could see crypto pegged to the general outlook for the macro environment.
“[W]hat we’re seeing driving markets is changes in interest rates, which is leading to the strengthening and weakening of fiat currencies, and so whenever you have the dollar moving, right, if the dollar strengthens, it’s going to strengthen against Exxon, it’s going to strengthen against Amazon, and it’s going to strengthen against Bitcoin, and when you have it weaken, you’re going to see the inverse,” the entrepreneur told Laura Shin of the Unchained podcast.
Bankman-Fried believes that, as “a lot of macro is being driven by moves in currencies, that’s going to move this sort of, you know, crypto prices against dollars.”
“So, one sort of boring answer to the question is … if markets go up, probably crypto will go up. If markets go down, it’ll go down, but let’s maybe factor that out for a second and sort of talk about, … relative to whatever happens to stock markets,” he said.
The FTX’ CEO estimates that regulatory activities by U.S. authorities are the factor that could exert the “biggest impact” on the cryptosphere in the current market, and such a crucial development could take place soon, he said.
This would happen “if we saw, basically, regulatory regimes’ clarity, and particularly in the United States regulatory regimes come out that sort of allowed the industry to operate with clarity in the country while protecting consumers. That’s been sort of the biggest white whale for years and I think we might be close,” according to Bankman-Fried.
