Enabling the Next Decade of Access and Growth

- “[SEC] Gary Gensler’s knee on the neck of the crypto industry was a $1 trillion knee”

- Regulatory harmonization is the next challenge on a global level

- The reversal of SAB 121 is seen as a priority for the next administration

The digital asset industry has had its fair share of run-ins with regulators, whether due to an absence of rulemaking, actively hostile supervisors or fragmentation in the global crypto regulatory landscape. While the US has had a negative influence on the sector in recent years, with a pro-crypto president entering the White House, Binance’s CEO Richard Teng expects the next four years to be quite different.

“We are going to move from a period of regulatory uncertainty and lack of clarity to a period where the main challenges are regulatory harmonization. Because only about a third of global regulators regulate crypto and each do it in a different manner,” he said. “[These differences] make deployment very difficult globally, because you must tweak operations [for each jurisdiction].”

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple – which like Binance has come under fire from US regulators in recent years – agreed that not only will the “Trump Effect” be felt domestically but will also induce a “ripple effect” internationally.

“Gary Gensler’s knee on the neck of the crypto industry was a $1 trillion knee. So, another way to look at it is that this is a recovery – the rally has been led by US-related cryptos, who have been at the forefront of the attack from the US government,” Garlinghouse said.

He added that he expects a derivative of the FIT 21 market structure bill to pass in the first six months, as well as crypto-related executive orders almost from day one, such as the one around SAB 121 on digital asset custodial obligations.

“We’ll see more of the key topics we’ve been discussing unlocking the next 10 years, when the largest economy in the world and its institutions have the handcuffs removed. We may have underestimated how those headwinds we’ve all experienced are going to shift to tailwinds – I’m very optimistic,” he added.

In response to Wired Crypto Reporter Joel Khalili’s question where Binance’s next 10,000 users will come from, Teng remarked that the highest and the fastest pace of crypto adoption has always been in jurisdictions where financial inclusion is lower and the demographic is younger, while emphasising the role of innovation.

“To reach the next billion users, which is our goal, the industry must improve on user interface and experience features – adoption hinges on innovation,” he said.