Good morning. CFOs, are you ready to handle cryptocurrencies? Alesia Haas, CFO at Coinbase, one of the largest centralized crypto exchanges in the U.S., knows a thing or two about the topic and shared some insight about what she sees on the horizon.
Fifty-two million Americans own or transact in crypto, Haas said during a fireside chat at the Nasdaq London Investor Conference on Wednesday. She expects that number to grow, especially as digital asset holders in November helped elect a wave of new members to the U.S. Congress that have "a very pro-crypto stance," she said.
In addition, earlier this month, President-elect Donald Trump nominated former regulator and crypto booster Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fortune reported. And Coinbase is very optimistic that the new pro-crypto U.S. administration will provide regulatory clarity, comprehensive crypto legislation, and “there will be growth in the entire industry,” Haas said.
Regulatory clarity will "unlock" innovation, banking relationships, and new capital inflows, she said. Coinbase is currently seeing a much bigger mix of institutional and retail adoption on its platform, she said.
Haas compares what's happening with crypto to the early days of the internet when Dotcom startups started to spring up, and then you saw "traditional companies say, 'Oh, I need an internet strategy',” she said. The companies then started to invest in their internet presence. So, in essence, traditional financial services institutions will need to compete with crypto firms.
Rick Wurster, president and incoming CEO of Charles Schwab Corp, told Bloomberg last month that once the U.S. regulatory environment changes, the firm is looking to offer spot crypto trading. "We're getting ready for that eventuality," said Wurster, who will begin his tenure as chief executive on Jan. 1. The firm currently offers crypto-linked exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and crypto futures.
As CEOs gain more interest in ways to implement crypto, CFOs will be tapped to mitigate risk. And for some finance chiefs, there’s a sense of apprehension.
"From CFOs to crypto: exploratory study unraveling factors in corporate adoption" was recently published in the journal Financial Innovation. For companies just considering crypto adoption, safety in transactions and trust in the chosen platform was extremely important for finance chiefs, the researchers found. Other crucial criteria included faster transactions without geographical limitations, lower transaction fees, seamless integration with existing systems, and potential cost savings.
Before joining Coinbase in 2018, Haas worked in traditional finance. She was previously CFO for Sculptor Capital Management (formerly Och-Ziff Capital Management Group), a global institutional alternative asset manager. She also served as CFO and head of strategy for OneWest Bank.
Earlier this year, Haas told me why she made the switch to Coinbase. “When I learned about blockchain, I could see that if you tokenize real-world assets—and send value peer to peer—that was going to create a more inclusive, faster, and cheaper financial system,” she said. “And that was such an exciting thing to be a part of.”
Working for banks and asset managers, she saw how many people touch the transaction just to move money from one person to another, and how many different steps and different market participants it takes, along with cost and friction, she explained.
“And I said, ‘If technology solves this, it will be adopted; it’s a matter of when, not if,’” Haas told me.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
