Franklin CEO: Trump will clear regulations to integrate finance and crypto

Author: Stephen Katte, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

Franklin Templeton CEO Jeanne Johnson believes that the new Trump administration will begin working on clearer regulations by integrating traditional finance and cryptocurrencies.

“I think the Trump administration’s approach is that we will start to see further convergence of TradeFi and cryptocurrencies, which is what we need,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg on January 21.

"We need to have some kind of regulatory clarity so you can bring it all together because fundamentally it's going to drive down costs and there's tremendous innovation that this technology can bring," Johnson added.

Johnson said blockchain technology could be used in exchange-traded funds and mutual funds in particular.

"I think it's important to think of blockchain as a technology. It's a programming language that does certain things very well," she said.

“I do think that ETFs and mutual funds may eventually be built on blockchain because it’s such an efficient technology.”

On January 20, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on his first day in office, but despite his pro-cryptocurrency pledges during the campaign, none of the orders addressed crypto assets or policies.

Hundreds of pro-cryptocurrency candidates have also won seats in Congress, and industry leaders say this U.S. administration could become the most pro- cryptocurrency administration in history.

Johnson said that while there are "huge opportunities" in the cryptocurrency industry, she believes some of them will end up being "noise," similar to what happened to internet companies during the dot-com bubble.

"It's kind of like the dot-com era, where eventually, you're going to have some of the biggest companies of the next decade, and then you're going to have a lot of companies that get left behind. I think the same is true in the cryptocurrency world," she said.

From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Internet companies were the subject of considerable hype and investment.

The industry peaked at $2.95 trillion in 2000 before falling to $1.195 trillion as capital dried up and investors left, leading to the bankruptcy of many companies in the industry.