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NewsFormer U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been one of the notable critics of cryptocurrency especially with Bitcoin (BTC). He’s been very vocal about it for the past few years, but it looks like his stand regarding digital assets has changed a bit.
Bitcoin critic’s new viewpoint
Mnuchin’s recent interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” discussed things from the U.S. economy, cybersecurity, and even bitcoin. A notable part of the interview was how he sees the said digital currency as of late as according to him “has evolved a bit.”
The former secretary stated that his view regarding bitcoin has changed a bit, though he made it clear that it is pretty consistent. Mnuchin added, “If people want to buy bitcoin as a substitute, no different than buying gold or some other asset, it’s fine.” He went on to say that he doesn’t personally want to have it in his portfolio, though if people want to it’s perfectly fine with him.
He also took notice of the underlying technology behind blockchain as he described it as “pretty incredible” adding that there’s a lot of applications in utilizing it. Mnuchin also highlighted the importance of bitcoin and other crypto-assets to be “regulatory compliant” as this includes compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).
Mnuchin even recalled a time during his stint as a treasury secretary under Trump’s administration where the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency okayed banks to offer this “Cryptocurrency Custodian Services” to its consumers. He explains that the reason they did it back then is that they wanted to ensure that this was becoming in the regulated world.
Bitcoin’s price down to its ‘final support’
As for bitcoin, it may well seem that the granddaddy of tokens’ debacle is far from over as its price rolled down to its ‘final support’ as an analyst warns that its price could be hovering over at the $20,000 mark.
Bitcoin has plunged to its so-called final support zone above $31,000. The data gathered by the publication alongside TradingView showed such lows on Thursday adding that data collected by the two websites made minute progress overnight. It got even worse when news broke out that Italian lawmakers stated that the major exchange that is Binance was deemed unauthorized to trade under their jurisdiction.
Mnuchin’s firm funds Cybereason
As mentioned, Mnuchin also touched on the topic of cybersecurity. For the uninitiated, he has a private equity firm named Liberty Strategic Capital and revealed that it just invested in the cybersecurity technology company of Cybereason.
Still, on that same interview with CNBC, Mnuchin made it known that his firm “is leading a $275 million investment” in Cybereason to toughen up clampdowns on ransomware attacks. He said, “This has been something I’ve been focusing on for a period of time and is a major focus for our new business.”
It was learned that Mnuchin’s firm is said to be investing $200 million while SoftBank and Neuberger Berman are putting in $75 million. With that, Mnuchin will be joining Cybereason’s board. In line with this, the cybersecurity firm’s recent funding is a follow-up to the $389 million it received from SoftBank, venture capital firms CRV and Spark Capital, and Lockheed Martin.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
