Blockchain.com CEO: Your Only Job in Crypto is to ‘Survive’
After a tumultuous month in crypto that saw the dramatic collapse of one of the world's largest crypto exchanges, industry heavyweights amassed in Miami to discuss the path ahead.
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“Having a big exchange blow up, that’s literally happened every down market we’ve ever been through, and usually it’s the number one exchange that blows up,” said Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith. “At the moment, your only job as a crypto CEO, running a larger company, is to make sure that you survive. It’s a survival of the fittest. We’re sort of all playing the Hunger Games of crypto right now.”
Blockchain.com was founded more than a decade ago in the United Kingdom, maintains a headquarters in Luxembourg, and established a US headquarters in Miami last year.
Smith trumpeted Miami's role as a crypto capital and its ability to magnetize new entrants in the space: “The passion for crypto is probably uniquely high here in Miami, and that’s a really cool thing to be a part of,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a city selling an arena sponsorship or you’re a banking partner or you’re a VC investor, the net result of the FTX episode is going to be an increased focus on corporate governance, access controls and due diligence, and I think that’s going to be a net positive for the whole space,” Smith said.
“I don’t think that it’s going to impact Miami in a particular way that it doesn’t impact any other city or any place. The bar for diligence and the bar for making sure that crypto companies have good governance is going to come back in fashion.”
