When you think about making money on Bitcoin, they are already making your money, even more than you.
Since the beginning of this year, not only Bitcoin has attracted much attention in the eye-catching market of cryptocurrency, but the related industries have also prospered. Naturally, exchanges and brokerages will obtain the most direct benefit.
The U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken is considering seizing the current favorable opportunity to go public directly in 2022. The recent surge in the price of Bitcoin has set a record for the exchange’s trading volume and the number of new customers. At present, the exchange has more than 6 million customers, and it is the fourth largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of trading volume. The number of new registered users of Kraken in the first quarter of this year was four times that of the second half of 2020, and the trading volume was 1.5 times that of last year, reaching a record level of US$160 billion.
Kraken’s main competitor in the United States, Coinbase, as the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has planned to list on the Nasdaq next week. The company’s latest financial forecasts show that it is expected to be launched this year driven by the epic rise in the price of Bitcoin. Its quarterly revenue will increase by about 9 times, from US$190.6 million in the same period last year to approximately US$1.8 billion. The first quarter profit is expected to be 730 million to 800 million US dollars, which is more than 20 times higher than the US$31.9 million in the same period last year. It is estimated that the number of verified registered users in the first quarter will reach 56 million, and the number of monthly active users in the first quarter will reach 6.1 million.
The U.S. online brokerage, Robinhood stated that in the first quarter of 2021, 9.5 million users traded cryptocurrencies on its platform. The Robinhood platform supports users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies. It had submitted documents for an initial public offering to US regulators last month.
With the popularity of cryptocurrency market and the emergence of applications in real life, the influence of cryptocurrency in the financial field is gradually increasing.
However, central banks around the world are still skeptical of cryptocurrencies. A British financial adviser launched a petition this year calling on the British government to make cryptocurrency transactions illegal. While India is currently preparing to approve legislation that prevents the trading and holding of cryptocurrencies.
However, Peirce, the commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), known as the “mother of encryption,” said that governments will find it difficult to ban Bitcoin. She said: “I don’t see how you can ban it. Unless you turn off the Internet, it is difficult to prevent people from trading Bitcoin, so I think it is foolish for the government to do this.”
It is indeed very difficult to do that. The development of technology is likely to make the government’s efforts to restrict Bitcoin in vain, because if people have access to the Internet, they can always download Bitcoin wallet software, run nodes, and conduct the transactions. It is more likely to achieve clear regulation of Bitcoin.
