Bitcoin and cryptocurrency have been all the rage as of late, but they are attracting a lot more than retailers and standard crypto investors. Wall Street is getting heavily intrigued by digital currency as well, and one man – Thomas Farley, the former president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) – feels that the future of finance may very well have crypto serving at the forefront.

Thomas Farley: I’m Excited By Crypto

In a recent interview, Farley commented that cryptocurrency was “the best-kept secret in the world and maybe the financial markets.” He is a big fan of Coinbase in particular, and really admires the move they made not too long ago in getting listed on the Nasdaq. While the stock shares have fallen in price in recent days, he is confident that this was an important move to make in getting the cryptocurrency industry closer to mainstream territory.

In an interview, he states:

The only thing I find more exciting… is talking about crypto. I am all in, and I think Coinbase (COIN) is a great company. I think the crypto space is amazing right now, notwithstanding the press it has gotten. I think it is the best-kept secret in the world and maybe the history of the financial markets. I will give you a stat. Coinbase, today, is the eighth largest exchange in the world. If you ask the everyday American, they probably think it is the biggest exchange in the world.

Despite the popularity of Coinbase, it is still outranked by trading platforms such as Binance, which is arguably the largest digital exchange in terms of daily market volume.

Still, at the end of the day, this Nasdaq listing has been giving Coinbase all kinds of new attention that could potentially boost its position on the financial trading ladder. In addition to crypto, Farley is also highly intrigued by the world of decentralized finance (defi) and says that its volume is increasing to unprecedented levels.

He says:

There is this corner of crypto called defi where essentially very smart kids are putting code up on a blockchain of their choosing and then you have a self-operating smart contract. Defi exchanges are doing as much volume if not more than Coinbase today.

We’re Past the Point of No Return

Farley also says that traditional banks and financial institutions, up to this point, have largely ignored the growing cryptocurrency space, and that this will likely come back to haunt them in the end. He explains:

The banks who for a century have made markets in every asset around the world have ignored this and abdicated their role and allowed Coinbase to become an $80 billion company… Retail has just moved around it and found other ways to access this asset class. I think [crypto] is fascinating and I think it is here to stay.

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