Pantera Capital is an investment firm well known in the blockchain and cryptocurrency spheres for putting its money where its mouth is in regard to crypto projects. With a portfolio that includes some 70 crypto projects, including the forthcoming Bakkt venture, it’s not been afraid to splash the cash. Co-CIO of Pantera Capital Joey Krug recently posted a ‘crypto thesis’ that outlines his view on the present and future state of the market, and includes some interesting viewpoints.
Cryptocurrency as Financial Free Speech
Krug has a very interesting perspective on the potential influence of cryptocurrency on the world, calling it a “financial revolution” the likes of which the world has never seen. The internet, he says, introduced democratized content and dramatically increased the ease with which we consume it, but there has never been such a tool to democratize money, until now:
I’d argue that the same fundamentals apply to the financial system, and by opening access to democratize the creation of new financial markets, society will benefit on the scale brought by the information revolutions in the past, but this time, it’ll transform value, money, and finance.
Private Blockchains Similar to Internal Intranets
Krug adds that private blockchains are not going to help achieve this goal any more than internal intranets helped the internet revolution. This is an interesting point of view for a company that has a stake in Ripple, who in XRP operate one of the biggest centralized blockchains in the world. The current state of the decentralized blockchain world is, according to Krug, “…slow, expensive, and hard to use, just like the internet was in 1992…Fast forward a few years, and it’ll be fast, cheap, and easy to use.”
Spotting the Trailblazers
Krug cites some specific coins that he thinks will go some way towards making the necessary changes that need to happen to get crypto adopted, citing the approach taken by Maker in their creation of Dai as the best option for a stablecoin, and 0x as being a big player in the decentralized exchange world. He also mentions Filecoin, Handshake, FunFair and Origin Protocol as being leaders in their respective fields, at least for now. It should be noted that Pantera has stakes in all these companies.
Barriers to Adoption
Krug also notes three key “barriers to adoption” – nascent infrastructure, scalability, and fiat-to-crypto onramps – all of which he says are making slow and steady progress, but need strengthening and improving before cryptocurrency markets can take their next step forwards. Despite these challenges, Krug clearly believes that crypto and blockchain have the potential to do for finance what the internet did for information. We’ll take that.
