Benzinga - Crypto is the future of finance and institutions represent the roads that get us there.
Amazon Exec On Bitcoin ETF: John Liu, Head of Product Web3/Blockchain at Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) Web Services, talked the acceleration of the crypto industry, bolstered by increasing institutional demand, on Tuesday at Benzinga's Future of Digital Assets Conference in New York City.
In 2021, the crypto industry surged in popularity as billions of dollars flooded the space. Although innovation accelerated, the industry was largely unconstrained by regulation, which created pockets of risk, Liu said.
The underlying technology remains valid and institutions are taking notice, as evidenced by the recent surge in spot Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) ETF filings, he said, adding that a Bitcoin ETF would act as a gateway to mainstream liquidity.
"If you are a company that wants to get cryptocurrency exposure, you don't have to go and build specialized blockchain infrastructure, you don't have to wait and get specialized licenses ... it makes it a lot easier to come in, so I think that's the excitement behind it," Liu said.
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Amazon's Liu On Stablecoins: A lot of excitement exists around stablecoins, which could help accelerate adoption, Liu said. PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL) has a new stablecoin that is basically a tokenized version of a dollar with assets behind it, he said.
PayPal bringing Web3 innovation into its network of merchants and consumers could really help to push stablecoins forward, he said.
"There's always been an interest in more efficient payments. Finance has always been about efficiency. How can we move money faster? And what you're seeing here is stablecoins provide that. It operates at fractions of a cent and it all settles almost instantly," Liu said.
Amazon's Blockchain Head On Tokenization: Asset tokenization is another aspect of crypto that's helping to push industry adoption forward, Liu told the Benzinga conference. Tokenization is essentially taking any asset and digitizing it on the blockchain to make it more efficient and transparent, he said.
Tokenization can act as a bridge, bringing traditional finance into the digital asset space, he said, adding that technology advances have helped push tokenization along, especially on the storage front.
"It's a very exciting time to see the resurgence of tokenized assets," Liu said.
Institutions are still working on how to enable blockchain technology to operate at scale by creating resilient infrastructure management, he said.
"Which blockchain providers will last long term? That's part of the challenge, right? It's still, at the end of the day, an emerging technology," Liu said.
"I can't form an opinion about which projects are getting it right today. I will say the projects that are focused on balancing institutional needs, the scalability along with the innovation, those are the ones that are getting it right."
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Amazon's John Liu at the Benzinga Future of Digital Assets conference Tuesday in New York City. Photo by Piboon Thongtanyong.
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