Marshall Hayner, the CEO and founder of Metal Pay, a fully operational payments app with support for cryptocurrency payments in 34 US states, recently shared his views and insights with CryptoGlobe about the cryptoassets industry.
Bitcoin ETFs “Are A Long Way Off”
Hayner, who was an early bitcoin (BTC) adopter and also worked as a contractor for the Stellar Development Foundation in 2014, revealed to us what he thinks are the main factors that are preventing institutional investors from entering the cryptoasset market. Hayner remarked:
Big investors still lack institutional grade trading desks and software with data granularity. Electronically traded crypto funds have yet to truly arrive, and other vehicles, such as the Bitcoin ETF (including basket funds) are a long way off. While the appearance of institutional investors is not necessarily required for long-term growth of the market, the legitimacy that would come with such an entrance would certainly help reduce the length between now and the next boom cycle.
Importance Of “Properly Registered” Custodial Solutions
In response to a question about the importance of the development of proper custodial solutions for cryptoassets, and whether it is equally as important as making cryptos more spendable (which his platform aims to do), Hayner said:
Yes, custodial solutions are incredibly important. Security isn’t easy, and it’s our job to make it as seamless as possible. In addition, properly registered custodial solutions are very important, not only for us, but also for our partners and clients. Users need to feel the same safety they would experience while keeping their funds in the bank, but with cryptocurrency. The first step towards earning consumer trust is ensuring that USD funds are FDIC insured, a feature we’ve incorporated into the Metal Pay app.
When asked about whether he thinks blockchain technology is “just a slow database”, and if the distributed ledger has use cases beyond decentralized money transfer, Hayner noted:
While decentralized money transfer is certainly an important application of blockchain technology, it is much too early in the development of the space to abandon the entire concept of dApps altogether.
Ethereum Price Drop “More Related To ICO Bubble”, Not So Much The Tech
Hayner, who also has experience working on the Dogecoin and Block.io projects, explained that the recent drop in Ether (ETH) price is “more related to an ICO bubble and general expectations outpacing development”, and that DApp platforms may potentially be useful in the foreseeable future.
According to Hayner, we have not seen “a universal rejection of the concept of DApps as a whole.” He explained:
Take Ethereum for example —there are multiple use cases being developed on top of the platform, to name a few: decentralized traditional payments, identity, file storage, asset creation, governance systems, exchange, supply chain, and more.
Most People Still Associating Cryptos With “Illicit Activity”
Commenting on what it would take for the crypto market to mature – in terms of societal factors to purely economic, Hayner believes:
For the cryptocurrency market to mature, there has to be a change in the popular cultural understanding of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. The vast majority of people who have heard of cryptocurrency now associate it with illicit activity, or worse, tulip-bubble level price speculation.
Interestingly, Hayner revealed that the real use cases and the true potential of cryptoassets and blockchain technology were not being discussed by retail investors. He said:
The conversations that enthusiasts are having around censorship resistance, digital scarcity, and removing middlemen, are not being had by retail investors who have been burned over the course of the last year. We need to directly demonstrate the value of cryptocurrency by offering consumers relatively riskless opportunities to actually play around with the technology.
Hayner also elaborated on what the crypto industry needs in order to achieve mainstream adoption:
As an industry, we are in need of users and real investors who are incentivized to learn about the tech advantages. On the enterprise level, I do believe adoption is happening more swiftly, as applications either prove their worth or don’t. Amazon’s recent integration of Blockchain into Amazon Web Services (AWS), is an early signal for the future involvement of the Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Googles of the world.
