The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, Jeff Sprecher, has recently weighed in on cryptocurrencies. More specifically, Sprecher said that both cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin are here to stay – notwithstanding the current bearish market sentiment.

Sprecher: Digital assets have a bright future

These comments came during the ongoing CoinDesk ”Consensus: Invest” conference. Toshi Times have previously covered the recent speech by SEC chairman Jay Clayton, also held during the congress.

Sprecher, on the other hand, is both the New York Stock Exchange’s chairman, as well as the CEO for Intercontinental Exchange – its parent company.

Although Sprecher started off by noting that it is not his role as an exchange operator to predict cryptocurrency prices. Nevertheless, when asked about the recent slide in cryptocurrency prices, he still had some comments on the issue. In fact, Sprecher stated that he believes digital assets have a bright future.

In addition to this, he was adamant that cryptocurrency would survive. ”The unequivocal answer is yes,” Sprecher noted when faced with a question regarding the asset class’ future.

Moreover, Sprecher went on to highlight that Bitcoin is still somewhat of a gold standard for all other cryptocurrencies. ”Somehow Bitcoin has lived in a swamp and survived,” Sprecher said. ”There are thousands of other tokens that you could argue are better, but yet Bitcoin continues to survive, thrive, and attract attention.”

Sprecher’s wife is the CEO of Bakkt

Anecdotally, Sprecher’s ties to digital assets are rapidly becoming more discernible. In addition to his previously stated attitude on cryptocurrency, his wife, Kelly Loeffler, is the CEO of Bakkt. Furthermore, Intercontinental Exchange is backing Bakkt – along with Starbucks, Microsoft, and BCG.

Bakkt will begin processing Bitcoin futures trading in the first quarter of next year. Originally slated for December of 2018, the launch was recently pushed to January 24 of 2019 due to ”unforeseen demand”.

Loeffler said that this decision stemmed from a wish to give Bakkt ”the best chance for success”, and to ”give people more time to get on board.”

Bakkt is intended to ”provide custody and price discovery” for Bitcoin in a manner that will supposedly be without fraud and market manipulation. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that Intercontinental Exchange’s main rival, Nasdaq, is also slated to launch a Bitcoin futures product in Q1 of 2019. Nasdaq’s intentions and plan were recently covered by Toshi Times.

Image Source: “Flickr”