Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has recently revealed he’s bullish on bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, because of its potential to be used as a store of value. Per his words, we’re still in the early days for crypto, which needs to be more user-friendly.
Speaking to Yahoo Finance correspondent JP Mangalindan at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, Ohanian revealed he was first introduced to the cryptocurrency scene by his partner Garry Tan, who invested in “the earliest days of Coinbase” through a bet on its founder Brian Armstrong.
Since then, Ohanian and Tan have invested in various companies in the space including DDEX, a decentralized crypto exchange. As for bitcoin he noted there is “some real traction” for it to become a store of value. He said:
As we’re seeing countries like Turkey, that are having significant economic crisis where people are losing faith in the Turkish lira, we’re going to see money over to bitcoin because, as unstable as it is, it is actually a lot more stable – for a lot of people than their own nation’s fiat currency.
As CryptoGlobe covered, Turkey’s economic woes may lead to increased cryptocurrency adoption, as the country’s fiat currency recently fell 14% against the USD over president Donald Trump doubling tariffs on the country’s aluminum and steel exports. The lira’s fall, as covered, prompted a surge in BTC’s trading volume.
However, Ohanian noted we’re still in the “earliest stages” of crypto, as it’s “going to be a while before it’s a mainstream part of our lives” in the US. Per the venture capitalist, companies like Coinbase are in a great position to help the ecosystem grow.
This, as a lot of the adoption will come with user interface improvements. He added that cryptocurrencies will need to be user-friendly enough for him to approach his dad and say: “here’s why you should be using this.”
When asked about Coinbase adding 50,000 users a day last year, Ohanian noted the trend is reassuring as it doesn’t matter where prices go. He said:
Seeing more and more people creating accounts definitely shows more and more adoption, and their end-game is to be this interface between people and their fiat money, and crypto – to be the most user-friendly, trusted, safe, secure way to do it.
The entrepreneur noted his company, Initialized Capital, is looking to invest in the ecosystem’s infrastructure and as such doesn’t pay too much attention to currency fluctuations, as volatility isn’t a concern.
He noted the infrastructure needs to be developed for us to have the “Web 3.0 we all dream of.” This, he said, is going to take a lot of work. As stated, Ohanian has in the past revealed he sees bitcoin hit $20,000 and ETH $15,000 by the end of the year.
