Pantera Capital's founding partner and CEO Orchid (OXT), Dr. Stephen Waterhouse, said the US government would never allow private companies to challenge the dollar.
In an interview that was recorded before the head of Telegram, Pavel Durov, officially announced the abandonment of the TON blockchain, Dr. Waterhouse said that the US government perceives cryptocurrencies issued by private companies with hundreds of millions of users as a real threat to the dollar:
“The fact is that some random startups are going to create their stablecoins; probably it is about hundreds of millions of client messenger installations - be it Facebook, Telegram, and those who can challenge CBDC or the existing currencies of the central bank. [...] This is a red rag for regulators. That is why we felt such a strong reaction both to Libra from Facebook and to Telegram. ”
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Now many governments in the world are fighting on two fronts - they are trying to prevent the release of stablecoins competing with fiat currencies, and are also exploring the possibility of issuing their own digital CBDCs.
Dr. Waterhouse also expressed his opinion on a recent statement by Telegram founder Pavel Durov in which he called the United States a “police state” and even discouraged entrepreneurs from Eastern Europe, saying that Silicon Valley is not the best place for a technology business.