By Stephen Ehrlich, Co-Founder and CEO at Voyager Digital

As a publicly listed digital asset trading business, the recent announcement of Coinbase’s IPO has naturally put a spotlight on us at Voyager Digital and we welcome their move as it will improve trust, transparency and above all, adoption of digital assets. It is imperative that the crypto asset space ups its game as there’s still a great deal of scepticism and concern in respect to their legitimacy or even purpose. This scepticism comes even at a time when several well-known household institutional names have entered the space in 2020.

But there are more than just signs that the mood is changing, with even some of the die-hard naysayers starting to accept that Bitcoin and crypto assets are here to stay.

The regulators are slowly coming to the table with the introduction of new rules, for example the US’s SEC is looking to impose greater KYC (Know Your Customer) on crypto wallet providers and France, a vocal advocate of the emerging blockchain technology and digital asset space, is looking to implement anonymity measures to fight money laundering activity.

Being a publicly listed company naturally provides an extra level of transparency and today there are quite a few digital asset focused public companies ranging from Bitcoin miners, crypto investment companies and in Voyager Digital’s case, crypto brokerage firms that allow investors to buy and sell crypto.

Over the Christmas and holiday period Bitcoin has continued its stratospheric rise showing further evidence that investors are hungry for alternative assets. With traditional markets being closed for public holidays, people have had time to read, research and because crypto-assets trade 24/7 they can take action. So while many around the world will have been trying to forget the trials and tribulations of a torrid 2020 by gorging on turkey or goose and opening presents, many investors will have been buying Bitcoin.

This is a trend we expect to continue well into 2021 and beyond. As people become more accepting of the digital asset space and adoption increases, more crypto based businesses will pursue the IPO route and become public companies. This process should become a self-fulfilling prophecy, bringing a greater proportion of the space under the regulatory regimes of stock exchanges and allowing anyone to dig deep into the business, providing greater scrutiny.

But this expansion will present regulators across the globe with multiple challenges. As Bitcoin and other crypto-assets are borderless, it allows brokers such as Voyager the ability to expand quickly, providing secure trading platforms to meet the demand of wider adoption. Regulatory hurdles will be overcome though as we are already seeing forward-thinking Central Banks and established regulators embracing this new asset class and the technology underpinning them. By working with regulators, established crypto businesses and in particular publicly listed ones, can help forge the way for the industry.

The future for crypto assets, Bitcoin in particular, looks bright and we look forward to playing a major role.