LitePay CEO Says We Might Be Thinking About Crypto All Wrong
Crypto enthusiasts, beware!
The digital assets shouldn’t be used as a “get rich quick” scheme, according to LitePay CEO Kenneth Asare. They’re also not meant to replace traditional currencies or investments like stocks.
What blockchain technology is, though, is the “internet of money”. Asare compares it to the 1990s, when internet systems were being built.
“This is the very beginning of a new way of sharing and transferring value,” he told Cheddar Tuesday. “This is the first part of a very long road that goes from 300 million people being able to be banked to everybody with a cell phone being able to be banked, which is literally 5 billion people today.”
Asare’s comments come days before cryptocurrency Litecoin is set to roll out its payment processor LitePay to 41 countries. The service target individuals who are “unbanked” but who have access to a cellular device. The new system can ease volatility in the market by automatically converting crypto into local fiat currency.
But Asare points out that current volatility shouldn’t make players in the market nervous, since cryptocurrency, like the internet two decades ago, is still in its early stages and may need some time to iron out fluctuations.
“This would be like in 1990 talking about how the early internet companies were or were not working,” he said. “They were onto something, and now we can look back and see that we have all of these products that have been built on top of it.”
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-internet-of-money-and-future-of-crypto-commerce).
The largest car search platform in India, Cardekho, recently raised $250 million in what the company calls a pre-IPO round led by leapfrog investments. The funding bumps CarDekho above unicorn status with a $1.2 billion valuation. The company currently has a catalogue of more than 3,000 pre-owned cars for online purchases and hopes to expand with the new funding. Partner and co-head of South Asian investment for LeapFrog Stewart Langdon joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
E-scooter company Bird made its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. CFO Yibo Ling joined Cheddar to discuss what made the company launch a SPAC IPO now. Ling noted one of the deciding factors was the need to scale the business to help take "gas-guzzling cars off the road" by growing into more locations. "A large portion of our proceeds will go to fund expansion into these new geographies," he said.
Thuc Vu, CEO and co-founder of Ohmnilabs, joins 'Cheddar Innovates' to discuss how robots are playing a role in the return to the office, and what's in store for the future of the robotics industry.
Joan E. Solsman, a senior reporter at CNET, joined Cheddar's "Opening Bell" to talk about Netflix moving to offer mobile video games for Android users as part of their subscription. She said this is likely one "baby step" for the streaming giant as it moves into the space. "You can see what Netflix wants to do eventually down the line is have these great ambitions to make their service be more than just passive TV, movies," she said. "They're moving more into merchandising, that they're moving more into in-person experiences. They're trying to broaden a way, which is a great thing to do when everyone keeps talking about metaverses."
Tuna Amobi, Director and Senior Equity Analyst at CFRA Research, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down the big takeaways from Roku's Q3 earnings report, as the company warns of further supply chain issues in the coming months.