Coinbase UK CEO: We Need Centralized Entities to Support Crypto

Zeeshan Feroz, United Kingdom CEO of Coinbase, has argued that we need centralized entities like central banks and Facebook to support the crypto ecosystem.

In an interview with CNBC published on Oct. 24, Feroz said he saw two ways for cryptocurrency to go mainstream: central bank digital currency issuance and Facebook's Libra.

Central banks will catalyze adoption better than Silicon Valley.

As distinct from cryptocurrencies, a CBDC is a digital currency issued by a central bank, whose legal tender status depends on government regulation or law.

CBDCs such as a digital US dollar or British pound, Feroz argued, could "Catalyze adoption in a way that us geeks in Silicon Valley might not be able to."

Feroz omitted mention of the only CBDC to have been announced by a major global economy to date: the People's Bank of China's digital renminbi.

Coinbase is one of the 21 remaining companies that are part of the Libra Association, which has been under scrutiny by lawmakers across the world and has consequently lost seven high-profile participants, including Visa, eBay and Mastercard.

"To transition from the world we're in today to that utopia, perhaps you need centralized entities, you need an on and off-ramp. You can't buy crypto if you don't have a centralized business that can maintain those relationships with banks."

The CEO said he believes there is a place for centralized businesses to support the crypto ecosystem, yet that he nonetheless buys into a part of that ecosystem being decentralized.

During a six-hour testimony before the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg broadly failed to assuage lawmakers' concerns regarding the launch of Libra.