Eugene Ludwig: Cryptocurrency companies have an advantage over banks

The former head of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said that now banks are noticeably inferior to crypto companies in their own territory.

Eugene Ludwig is outraged that crypto companies are brazenly invading the territory of traditional finance, and they get away with it, since the industry is very loosely regulated.

Ludwig held the position of controller from 1993 to 1998. After that, he worked as an executive director at Dutsche Bank. And now he is a managing partner of Canapi Ventures, a company that invests in fintech projects.

According to Ludwig, unregulated crypto firms that accept investor deposits and provide lending services without proper supervision will cause a new economic crisis in the future. If the US Federal Reserve is able to use a central bank digital currency (CBDC), this will hit commercial banks even harder, perhaps becoming a more convenient way for citizens to save money.

The solution to the problem is quite simple, the former official argues: banks should be allowed to play more aggressively in the cryptocurrency market so that they can “stand up for their territory” and not sit and watch how they survive from the market. However, Eugene Ludwig admits, even if banks had such an opportunity, they most likely would not have taken advantage of it.

Earlier, Acting Head of the Office of the Comptroller of the United States of America, Michael Hsu, said that the collapse of the Terra project and its consequences for the market revealed the weaknesses of digital assets.