CEO of Major American VC Firm Digital Currency Group: Crypto Winter Is Ending
The crypto winter is likely to be ending, a senior executive at major American blockchain venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) said in an interview with Bloomberg Technology on June 11.
Barry Silbert, DGG founder and CEO, outlined the cyclical nature of the ups and downs of major cryptocurrency bitcoin (BTC), which allegedly means that the recent surge of crypto prices would only continue.
Silbert, who is known as a serial crypto investor, specifically pointed out that bitcoin’s price dynamics have been “quite a roller coaster,” with its price having dropped 80% four times since 2011 only to hit another all-time high afterwards. Based on this — combined with the recent surge of the markets after a massive bear market of 2018 — Silbert stated that it “looks like, perhaps, we are coming out of a crypto winter and we’ve entered a crypto spring.”
The DGG executive has also pinpointed the large involvement of institutions in the crypto industry, claiming that it has grown tremendously since the last bull market in 2017, when bitcoin hit its all-time record of $20,000. Citing big institutional crypto initiatives, such as the upcoming bitcoin custody offering by Fidelity, Silbert said that the institutional involvement of 2017 compared to the current interest of institutions is “really night and day.”
Earlier this year, Silbert had predicted that the majority of digital tokens will lose their value in the long term, claiming that almost every initial coin offering (ICO) was “just an attempt to raise money but there was no use for the underlying token.”
Recently, former JPMorgan executive and current blockchain researcher Tone Vays expressed skepticism about the supposition that the crypto winter is over. In opposition to Silbert, Vays argued that the recent spike in crypto prices was mainly supported by internal capital, which he considered shaky in comparison with external money coming into the space.
Meanwhile, bitcoin has just broken the $8,000 threshold again after dropping below the mark yesterday.