Bill Barhydt is the CEO of Abra, which is a “crypto bank” built on a system of Bitcoin and Litecoin smart contracts that allows users to hold pretty much any fiat currency as digital cash on their smartphones.[1]
In a recent, wide-ranging interview with angel investor Jason Calacanis on This Week in Startups, Barhydt was asked for his opinion on 2017’s cryptoasset frenzy. In his response, the Abra CEO touched on the importance of government approval of bitcoin in Japan and the hysteria in the initial coin offering (ICO) market.[2]
FOMO Rooted in Japan
In Barhydt’s view, the hysteria around bitcoin and other cryptoassets in 2017 was kicked off by the Japanese government’s approval of this new technology.
“My take is the price went up because the Japanese government basically gave a blessing to the institutional investors that says, ‘We support this,’” said Barhydt. “In Japan culturally, that has a different meaning than in the U.S. That was like a blessing that says, ‘Go forth and prosper.’ It’s almost like a blessing of ‘please do this’ — [in] the way that it was accepted by the market.”
This is contrary to how people tend to operate in the United States, for example, where the mantra is to try something first and then ask for forgiveness later if it turns out to be illegal.
According to Barhydt, the movement into bitcoin by institutional investors in Japan led to a feeling of FOMO among retail investors around the world as the price began to climb. These retail investors then entered the market through services like Coinbase, which had the most popular app on the App Store at one point in late 2017.
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