During the Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland on January 16, Luzius Meisser, co-founder and board member of the Bitcoin Association Switzerland, shared his thoughts with Cointelegraph on what he believes will lead the next wave of crypto innovation.
The ICO Market Will Change, Giving Birth to Stablecoins and Security Tokens
Meisser stated that while initial coin offerings (ICOs) led to the last wave of crypto innovation, he believes the next wave will be led by stablecoins and security tokens rather than ICOs. Elaborating, Meisser said that he expects the ICO sector to undergo a significant change in the medium-term future.
The impending change he foresees is owing to the vast number of scammy or half-baked ICOs that have disappointed and sometimes downright defrauded investors, due to lack of oversight in the sector.
Therefore, Meisser predicts that the next wave of ICOs will become much more heavily regulated, with the intent on protecting investors. He also predicts that security tokens will bring about heavier regulations during the next ICO wave, and while security tokens are introduced, utility tokens will die.
“I would say payment and utility tokens are more or less over, sometimes they make sense.”
Meisser’s exception from the quote above is certain stablecoins that are brought to market in such a way as to ensure they are legally considered to be payment or utility token rather than a security.
Explaining further, Meisser said:
“Stablecoins are a precondition to enable average companies to bring their equity onto the blockchain, because if they issue bonds or shares they want to do so against U.S. dollars, euros or Swiss francs because those are the currencies they calculate in, not Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH).”
Winklevoss Twins Share Meisser’s Views on Stablecoins and Tokenization
Meisser is not alone in his prediction of what will lead the next wave of crypto innovation. His views are shared by Bitcoin bulls and Gemini crypto exchange founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
The twins believe that the tokenization of assets and stablecoins pegged to fiat currency are the most promising developments in the cryptocurrency space.
In an interview with Fortune’s Balancing the Ledger segment., the twins said:
“The ICO mania of 2017 — we view that as the Pets.com of the securities token world. They were unregistered and it was crazy town for about six months there. I think the next wave will see the real innovation and the really interesting assets that become tokenized — like real estate, like buildings that are currently not traded in a really liquid fashion. So that’s exciting.”
Both Meisser and the Winklevoss twins are prominent leaders in the cryptocurrency space. Therefore, tokenized security tokens and stablecoins may very well bring the next wave of crypto innovation. As to when this will happen, no dates were mentioned.
However, there is much speculation that we will see these innovations this year in 2019. Already, a wave of stablecoins have recently flooded the market with the likes of Circle’s (USDC), Gemini’s (GUSD), Paxos (PAX), and TrustToken’s (TUSD).
The stablecoins mentioned here are just a few of many, and multitudes more are bound to come.
When will the next wave of crypto innovation of security tokens and stablecoins kick off? Has it started already? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
