Messari CEO thinks a fresh wave of crypto regulation could be imminent

After nearly a decade of progress since Bitcoin’s inception, regulators could be gearing up for further action, given the industry’s recent growth.

Regulators may see crypto’s recent growth as a problem, according to Messari CEO and founder Ryan Selkis. 

“I’ve never been more bullish on crypto but I think everyone might be mispricing global regulatory risk,” Selkis tweeted on Thursday, adding:

“When crypto looks like a toy, it’s not a threat. When stablecoins hit PayPal volumes and go private, it starts to look like a weapon.”

In the months following its drop below $4,000 in March 2020, Bitcoin (BTC) has surpassed $60,000 in price. DeFi assets have surged over the past year or so as well. Yearn.finance (YFI) went from less than $1,000, all the way up past $48,000, based on CoinMarketCap data. Nonfungible tokens, the current industry craze, may be the biggest of them all — An artist known as Beeple recently sold an NFT artwork for $69M at auction.

Selkis noted his price target for taking profit on what one can assume to be Bitcoin, relative to hi regulatory concerns. “I’ve got early sell orders set for $80k,” he said in his tweet. “Selling 5% 80-100k, and another 5% $100-125k,” he said in a separate tweet as a response to one of the comments on his initial post. “Then we’ll see where things go from there,” he added.

During the last major crypto boom in 2017, initial coin offerings, or ICOs, were the big thing. U.S. regulatory bodies increased their governance on the sector in the years following, taking action against a number of projects. Regulation has also affected crypto in other regions in various fashions, including the European Union, with its 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive.