Matonis believes that we are now entering the “post-legal tender age … that isn’t driven by central banks” and decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin will cater to this shift.
Jon Matonis, the founder of the Bitcoin Foundation, recently crushed all the Bitcoin and crypto critics hard with a strongly worded message and dismissed all the fears of the possibility of the bubble in the crypto markets. While talking to Business Insider at the Innovate Finance conference in London, Matonis said that instead of crypto, the bond and stock markets that have been artificially inflated by the central banks are bubbles.
He said: “To the people who say bitcoin’s a bubble, I would say bitcoin is the pin that’s going to pop the bubble. The bubble is the insane bond markets and the fake equity markets that are propped up by the central banks. Those are the bubbles.” Matonis believes that we are now entering the “post-legal tender age … that isn’t driven by central banks” and decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin will cater to this shift.
Prior to founding the Bitcoin Foundation in 2012, Matonis was a currency trader for the Japanese bank Sumitomo and Visa. The Bitcoin foundation which is a non-profit organization in order to compensate the core developers of the Bitcoin protocol. For two years from 2012 to 2014, Matonis set on the foundation’s board and is currently continuing as the executive director.
However, despite being critical of the behavior of the conventional financial system towards digital currencies, Matonis praises the fact that some banking institutions like the Goldman Sachs are considering to enter the crypto space. Matonis believes that the arrival of big giants to the crypto world will help reduce volatility and mature the market.
He further adds “I think it’s fabulous that they’re getting into it because it brings in new liquidity. “They’re going to develop futures markets, options markets, I even think you’re going to start to see interest rate markets around bitcoin. We’re used to hearing things about Libor, the index for bitcoin interest rates is Bibor.”
While expressing his views about the ongoing crypto regulations, Matonis believes that crypto shouldn’t be regulated. “I think we should operate in an environment of caveat emptor, let the buyer do his research,” he said. “This hopefully has forced a lot of investors to do more research. No one is forcing them to invest in ICOs [initial coin offerings]. If you’re worried about the risk, just walk away.”
He further added: “The regulators are so confused, not just in Europe but in North America as well. They’re used to fundraising models that involve selling debt or selling equity.”
Matonis regards Bitcoin as a “third model for a startup to raise funds. They actually issue utility tokens into the market that don’t represent equity, they don’t represent equity, they don’t represent debt, they represent a negotiable claim on the success of the token which is in effect, hopefully, linked to the success of the company,” he said.
“This is an entirely new model and it doesn’t fit in any of the regulator’s boxes.”
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