CoinList CEO: Quiet Year for Crypto in 2019 Will Lead to Innovation

Published at: Jan. 31, 2019

Cryptocurrency markets in 2019 are “going to be quiet for a little bit” while firms focus on building the crypto space, the CEO of CoinList Andy Bromberg told Yahoo Finance on Jan. 31.

Following record highs at the end of 2017, cryptocurrency markets in 2018 were mostly bearish. Major coins took large losses and at the end of the year, Bitcoin (BTC) was down by 74 percent while both Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) fell by 84 percent.

The first month of 2019 has also seen major losses among top cryptocurrencies. At press time. those same coins, BTC, ETH and XRP, are all down 9.5 percent, 22 percent, and 15.5 percent on their monthly charts, respectively. However, in Bromberg’s view, slower markets mean that companies and entrepreneurs will start developing the space with more useful services and products:

[In 2019] it feels like people are focused on building... I think the market is going to be quiet for a little bit, while people focus on actually creating things. It feels like a little bit of a Mesopotamia, ‘cradle of civilization’ moment, where everyone has the ingredients they need, needs to focus in and start to build out those empires, and create what the future is going to look like, and that’s what this year is going to be about.”

Bromberg noted that there was less hype surrounding the cryptocurrency space. Sinking prices and low volatility drove many speculators to leave cryptocurrency in the last quarter of 2018. Some in the space of also welcomed the bust of the initial coin offering (ICO) bubble, as many projects have failed to turn out successful products, or were outright scams.

To date, CoinList has listed five ICOs: Filecoin, Blockstack, Props, Origin and TrustToken, none of which have yet launched a token, according to Yahoo Finance. CoinList picks and vets each project itself, and only sells tokens to accredited investors (individuals with an annual income over $200,000 or net assets over $1 million, excluding their primary residence).

Bromberg’s statements echo those he made earlier this month, when he told the Wall Street Journal that the next step for crypto was figuring out “how we can turn this technology into products for people to use.” Per Bromberg:

“Building consumer products is really hard. The developer tool kit isn’t there.”