Brian Brooks, director of the U.S. Office of the Audit of the Currency, said on Tuesday that the banking industry will face major disruptions in blockchain.
He said at the Washington Fintech Week on Tuesday that banks are remnants of the “pre-tech era” and will face the impact of blockchain technology.
Brooks previously served as the chief legal officer of Coinbase, a major cryptocurrency exchange. He pointed out that in the future, banks will directly link with the blockchain, and the bank will treat the blockchain as a payment network and become a node in it.
He also pointed out that the traditional role of banks as collectors of dollars may also disappear, because such a centralized role is no longer needed to improve efficiency or provide services such as deposits or loans.
Brooks believes that the emergence of DeFi has changed the role of banks. He mentioned, “Suddenly, the money collected in the bank is no longer valuable, because technology is replacing the bank’s function in this area.”
However, this does not mean that the end of the banking industry has come. He said that according to the China Banking Regulatory Commission, trust services, consulting and physical asset custody will still be the main business of banks.
Brooks emphasized, “I think banks will play an important role, but they will usher in a transformation. Banks will focus on’higher value-added, higher-profit services’ instead of acting as collectors of dollars.”
Brooks recently participated in fintech events and spoke out on the blockchain and encryption industry.
According to “Betwee”, at the Los Angeles Blockchain Summit this month, he stated that banks should allow consumers to store their Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
He pointed out, “There are currently 40 or 50 million Americans owning crypto assets, which is not widely understood. Ordinary people on the street think that cryptocurrencies are a super unusual niche market, but this is not the case. If the national banking system wants To play a role in providing a safe haven for storing and trading value, it must include any financial assets held by people at any given moment, and cryptocurrency is one of them.”
He also said that the United States needs clear encryption regulatory rules. Brooks said: “For bad crypto activities, we need to eliminate them. If we want to benefit from these new technologies, such as easier access to credit and help those who failed to participate in the old financial system, we must figure out the regulatory rules. .”
Author Liang Che
