Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, speaking at the Blockdown Conference 2020 that is being held virtually on April 16 and 17, offered an optimistic forecast for Bitcoin, saying that the price of the asset would rise as a result of the numerous quantitative easing measures being employed by governments around the world.
Noting that trading volumes have increased since the start of 2020, Zhao said that Binance itself was doing “quite well.” His view, shared by many crypto investors, is that this will push the price of Bitcoin up, even if the world's economy is suffering - to him, “mathematics works”, and the increase of fiat will find its way into the deflationary asset that is Bitcoin,
I think that basically everyone's kind of expecting things to happen immediately on a daily basis. So the minute that the feds print money, the Bitcoin prices go up because people should be using those money to buy crypto. But no one has gotten that money yet, and they're still trying to figure out how to distribute their money.
Everyone thought the Bitcoin price will go up when there's an economic crisis. But basically what happened is that when [the mainstream] market tanked by 5% there was a lot of money disappearing from people's hands.
Most governments have introduced various fiscal measures to tackle the fallout of the pandemic, which has a variety of industries very hard, most prominently travel, hospitality and airline industries, though many other industries have had to suspend operations and/or lay off employees.
Zhao also spoke about Binance’s plans to release a Bitcoin debit and the state of Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs).
The Binance Bitcoin debit card was revealed last month, as a part of a bid to boost adoption by allowing Binance users to purchase goods and services from vendors who don’t accept crypto. He confessed that implementation is a problem, as it would have to be introduced to countries on a case by case basis, starting with Malaysia and Vietnam. Zhao said,
Being able to swipe a credit card, and spend crypto, solves that problem. The merchant is basically accepting crypto without knowing it; to him, he accepts fiat. That will slowly solve the chicken and egg problem.
He also showed belief in the IEO market’s continued survival, saying that he is “still very confident in the IEO market.”
The Blockdown 2020 Conference, a virtual event being held as a consequence of the coronavirus lockdowns around the world, features many distinguished individuals from the blockchain and cryptocurrency world. Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees, Roger Ver and singer Akon will all speak on various subjects.
