From Coinbase and Binance, to JPMorgan and PayPal, these are the biggest companies in crypto
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have come a long way since the days of cypherpunks and crypto nerds. Companies like Coinbase have gone public, and established firms like JPMorgan Chase and Fidelity are investing big-time in the space.
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00:00 Crypto has come a long way in the past 15 years.
00:03 In the beginning, it was cypherpunks,
00:05 and now it's become big business.
00:07 There are not only crypto-native firms
00:10 like Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance.
00:12 There are also traditional finance companies
00:15 like JPMorgan and Fidelity that are investing big time.
00:18 When Bitcoin was founded,
00:24 it was founded with this core idea of decentralization.
00:27 No one person controls the monetary supply of Bitcoin,
00:31 unlike, for example, the US government
00:33 that controls the supply of the US dollar.
00:36 Decentralization, though, is very hard to do in practice.
00:39 It's hard to find someone to buy Bitcoin from you,
00:42 and it's hard to find someone who can sell you Bitcoin.
00:45 This is why a core group of centralized companies
00:49 have grown up to make it easier for people
00:50 to actually do these types of exchanges and investments.
00:56 In addition to CeFi,
00:57 there's something called TradFi, or traditional finance.
01:00 And essentially, this encompasses the household
01:03 and brand names that we're all familiar with
01:05 when we think of big banks and big finance.
01:08 This includes JPMorgan and Fidelity.
01:11 It also includes some of the established fintech firms
01:15 like Robinhood, the popular stock trading app, PayPal,
01:18 and Block, formerly known as Square,
01:21 founded by Jack Dorsey.
01:22 A lot of their investments and a lot of their engagement
01:25 in the space of crypto is often more reliant
01:28 on the technology of blockchain, which underlies Bitcoin
01:32 and all of the cryptocurrencies
01:33 that are basically on the market.
01:35 For example, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan,
01:38 has often said that he doesn't like Bitcoin.
01:41 But JPMorgan has a division called Onyx,
01:44 which is specifically devoted
01:45 to using the technology of blockchain
01:47 to speed up various different kinds
01:49 of financial transactions.
01:51 Fintech firms like PayPal or Block
01:54 do allow you to buy cryptocurrency.
01:56 PayPal, for example, lets you buy Bitcoin, Ether,
01:59 Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.
02:01 Robinhood allows you to buy
02:02 more than 10 different cryptocurrencies.
02:05 For many years, these CFI companies
02:08 have dominated the crypto landscape.
02:10 But recently, with the spate of litigation
02:12 from the SEC and the federal government,
02:14 they have left space for trad-fi firms to occupy.
02:18 A lot of people in the crypto industry are saying
02:20 that the future of blockchain and cryptocurrency
02:23 does not lie with Coinbase and Binance
02:25 and all of the large CFI firms,
02:27 but with the likes of JPMorgan, Fidelity, and PayPal.
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