Benzinga CEO Jason Raznick: “Rules And Structures” Can Spur Crypto Sector Rebound
On this episode of TDR’s Trade to Black Podcast, TDR contributors Anthony Varrell and Scott Braun interviewed Benzinga CEO Jason Raznick at the Future of Crypto Conference in Ney York City. The event, held on December 7, featured the brightest minds in crypto and dealmaking, along with an exclusive group of attendees and a diverse lineup of famed industry speakers, including Kevin O’Leary.
On the subject, Jason believes one of the biggest challenges right now is a lack of “rules and structures”, which has allowed bad actors like FTX to damage industry credibility:
See what happens are that people are motivated for certain things, they have incentives, you know, for growing the stock. If you have incentives and there’s rules—just like you play volleyball—and you know, you serve it and you get the ball back over… Like there’s rules, there’s structure. And if there’s rules and structure around this, I think it cleans it up a lot.
As the recent fiasco regarding FTX has demonstrated, the lack of proper checks and balances has allowed aggressive organizations to fail in their fiduciary duty to deposit holders. In turn, billions of dollars has been wiped out while centralized exchange volumes plummet, as Bitcoin storage goes off chain.
The current crisis of confidence is something Congress is urgently addressing.
In the first of several congressional hearings to examine FTX’s failure, members of the Senate Agriculture Committee recently pressed Rostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, over whether the turmoil could have been avoided with better oversight. This was followed-up by a thorough Senate Banking Committee meeting in Congress in which four expert witnesses representing opposite sides of the crypto spectrum testified in front of legislators.
And as reported by Benzinga, outgoing Republican Senator Pat Toomey has introduced a bill that outlines a federal framework for regulating stablecoins just two weeks before he is set to retire.
Much needed regulation is coming to the crypto sector, even if it took a crisis to spur regulators into action. As Jason Raznick notes, crypto is not going away—it just needs the proper oversight to make it work the way it was supposed to.
Click on the embedded link to view the entire interview with Benzinga CEO Jason Raznick, in his own words.
