The industry-wide debate over institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies and the risks of centralized custody will lead to increased interest in self-custody, OKX President Hong Fang said in a recent interview with CoinDesk.
While institutional adoption and growing popularity of cryptocurrency ETFs is a net positive for the industry, there may be a shift in the industry narrative to warn of the risks of custody concentration, Fang said. She predicts that most native cryptocurrency users will embrace self-custody this year.
At OKX, assets held in its own portfolios (nearly $50 billion) exceed those on its central exchange ($30.8 billion).
This series is brought to you by Consensus Hong Kong. Come experience the most influential event in Web3 and digital assets, February 18-20. Sign up today and save 15% with code CoinDesk15.
“The tension between adoption risks and concentration will be highlighted,” said Fang, who will be one of the speakers at the Hong Kong Consensus conference in February. “Against this backdrop, I expect more industry campaigns to educate why self-protection is important and how to use it, and more products to make it easier for audiences to use self-protection and mitigate risks accordingly.”
According to Fang, the volume of OKX DEX has increased by 20 times. But she believes that direct exchanges and centralized exchanges are complementary.
“The native cryptocurrency audience will want to be able to use CEX for reliability and DEX for innovations,” she said. “These supply and demand dynamics will drive increased DEX adoption to enable innovation while supporting the gradual maturation of the cryptocurrency regulatory framework.”
A strategic reserve for Bitcoin?
A National Strategic Reserve for Bitcoin, a policy promoted by the new Trump administration, would centralize the leading cryptocurrency. But many crypto enthusiasts doubt that this will actually happen, if bettors on Polymarket are anything to go by (as of January 22, they were putting the chances of Trump creating such a reserve in the first 100 days of his administration at just $100). 30 percent.)
Fang agrees with this sentiment.
“I personally find it difficult to believe that major sovereign states like the United States would formally adopt the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve at the federal level at this point, but it is very possible that smaller sovereign states or countries will do so,” she said.
But since this is a cryptocurrency, anything is possible.
She said that highly unexpected events — such as the Trump administration not following through on its promises with cryptocurrencies — could quickly dampen the uptrend. But the biggest danger, according to Fang, remains excessive centralization.
There is a vaccine for this danger: self-guarding. Which the market is quickly adopting, according to OKX.
publish_date
