Bitcoin is ‘too big to fail’ now, says official of major U.K. crypto exchange

“Personally, I would struggle to see even multiple reasons combined together [for bitcoin prices to fall to zero],” Anissimov told MarketWatch in an interview on Wednesday.

“I don’t believe the argument that it’s worth nothing holds anymore,” Anissimov said.

Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-0.06%
“is too big to fail and it’s not financed by debt,” the executive director said.

Read: Here are key reasons bitcoin prices are tumbling, and the bullish factors that may buoy them

To be sure, Anissimov, represents a enthusiastically bullish faction of digital-currency supporters. His firm is among the top 20 largest cryptoexchange platforms on the globe, according to independent data site CryptoCompare.

Already, a significant player in the nascent world of cryptos and digital assets broadly in Europe, CEX.IO has been attempting to dig more decisively into the U.S. market, where Texas, New York and Louisiana remain the only uncharted frontiers at the moment due to regulatory uncertainty.

Bitcoin may be considered a flash-in-the-pan investment by some, having been created a mere 11 years ago, but Anissimov’s pedigree, as a University of Cambridge graduate and an electronic engineer, is stellar.

It is that kind of class of participant in the cryptocurrency space that has become more common and the sort of bona fides that bullish bitcoin investors point to when they refer to the growing appeal of coins that cannot be seen nor felt but have nonetheless captured the imagination of Main Street and Wall Street, as indicated by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink recently.

Many fanatics of bitcoin and its ilk highlight the $17 trillion in negative yielding debt globally and outsize sums that governments will be forced to spend to limit the deleterious impact of COVID-19 on global economies as part of the thesis for higher digital asset values.

As the thinking goes, worries about the devaluation of fiat money have spotlighted bitcoins true worth as a possible hedge against the macroeconomic problems ahead.

Anissimov said that this current macro-dynamic is what may justify “the hype” for bitcoins and its brethren.

“That hype is substantiated by some of the major players paying closer attention to bitcoin.”

To be sure, nothing can justify “hype,” almost by definition, he said.

Check out: Realization ‘cash is trash’ could soon see bitcoin price hitting $500,000, says Tyler Winklevoss

However, no one knows what the future holds and where bitcoin’s price will fall against the landscape of assets that have been around for ages.

The CEX director suggested that he’s no prognosticator of bitcoin prices, but can’t see it falling below $16,000 in the near term much less $3,000.

And a valuation of $0? Anissimov said that bitcoin has escaped Pandora’s box and the damage from such a theoretical destruction in values might be calamitous.

“It is a means of exchange of value. It is an ecosystem that works.”

The planned creation of digital assets by central banks from here to China also has lent some credibility to virtual coins, with governments exploring central bank-backed digital currencies or CBDC.

At last check Wednesday, bitcoin prices were changing hands at $19,054, up 1% on the day and 166% so far this year. By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.20%
is up 4.7% so far this year, the S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.17%
has gained over 13.5% during the same period and the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
-0.04%
 has advanced almost 38% in the year to date. Gold
GOLD,
+0.54%,
meanwhile, has climbed 20% thus far this year.