President & Chief Executive Officer, Jenny Johnson was interviewed on the main stage, where she spoke on the topic of innovation in blockchain technology. Jenny’s comments were centered around the expectation that the Crypto industry will be increasingly regulated in the future.
She said she believes the future of the industry “will be regulated,” and that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC) were a “distraction” from crypto’s real innovation: blockchain technology.
“Bitcoin is the greatest distraction from the greatest disruption [coming to the financial system], and that’s blockchain,” Johnson said.
“I can tell you, if bitcoin ever became so big that it became a threat to the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency, the U.S. would limit … the use of bitcoin. Currencies are very important for governments … to manage their economies,” said Johnson. “They will not cede their currency to this concept of a global currency.”
She added that companies should seek to engage directly with regulators as they develop new products. Indeed, Franklin Templeton itself has been in close contact with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the development of its own blockchain-based propositions.
Also at the conference, Sandy Kaul, Head of Digital Asset & Investor Advisory Services participated in a panel discussing cultural assets. She was joined by Lori Hotz, co-CEO andco-founder of Lobus (a Franklin Templeton Silicon Valley FinTech Incubator company) and Dre Lyon, a Grammy-award winning hip-hop producer.
Additionally, Roger Bayston, Head of Digital Assets, joined Christopher Perkins, President of CoinFund, on stage for the live launch of CoinDesk Indices and CoinFund’s composite ether staking rate (CESR). CESR is a floating rate benchmark that serves as a fundamental building block of the web3 economy.
Jenny Johnson, Sandy Kaul, and Mike Muir, Head of Digital Assets Technology, also participated in a roundtable session organized by CoinDesk that gathered top institutional investors to discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in this space.