Are Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies really digital currencies or should they just be thought of as digital assets? The answer probably depends upon whom you ask. And it may also depend on “when” you ask them — now or in the future.
The major money-center banks have been slow to adopt Bitcoin and cryptocurrency assets as payments and as investments. That may be about change under the Trump administration. How and when remain up in the air.
Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) has not been the fastest bank and asset manager into Bitcoin and digital assets. That said, CEO Brian Moynihan has said in a CNBC interview that the U.S. banking sector will embrace these assets to be used for payments if regulators allow it.
President Trump has pledged for the U.S. to be the leader in cryptocurrency under his term with a promise of crypto-friendly regulations, unlike (or far more than) under the Biden administration. Moynihan sees major banks being involved in the crypto-payments system. Moynihan told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:
“If the rules come in and make it a real thing that you can actually do business with, you’ll find that the banking system will come in hard on the transactional side of it.”
Moynihan effectively called this just another form of payments like using Visa or Mastercard, or debit cards and other digital payments. Moynihan also did not address Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as investments or as a store of value as a separate question.
This is certainly not an outright endorsement of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a new form of direct payments. It is still an “If, then…” scenario. The major banks have so far only allowed customers to buy into ETFs and to buy stocks of the companies which mine, own and trade in cryptocurrencies. And some of the banks were even slow to allow those into client investment portfolios.
One of the very first considerations is that crypto assets get taxed for gains when they are held in online accounts and then sold or liquidated, quite different than the money in your U.S. bank accounts — although gains on foreign currency owned by Americans are taxed if and when the currency is converted back into dollars.
A lot has to occur within the United States for crypto-payments to become widespread digital payments. Most businesses which would accept payments have no systems in place to even know how to start accepting new payments in short order. Every company should be working on it, but that’s probably like saying everyone should plan to only eat healthy food after today.
Silvergate just didn’t hang on long enough… What would they be worth today with Bitcoin above $100,000?
