U.S. cryptocurrency index fund provider Bitwise Investments said that Facebook’s Libra has accelerated crypto’s progress by three years. Despite the increased industry scrutiny, the increased attention toward Bitcoin is working to its advantage.

A San Francisco-based index fund company believes that the best is yet to come to crypto and the increased attention the industry has received from regulators and institutions will only speed up its development.

Bitwise, one of the first investment funds to offer exposure to cryptocurrencies, said in its latest investor letter that a lot has taken place in the past 18 months. After pulling back by 80 percent, the market managed to stage a recovery exceeding 200 percent. Many of the world’s leading financial companies such as Fidelity, NYSE, and TD Ameritrade have entered the crypto market. Facebook, Samsung, Square, and HTC soon followed suit.

But, none of the developments seen in the past 18 months can compare to July 2019, Bitwise said, which will go down as one of the most important months in the history of the crypto industry. The investor letter said that Facebook’s announcement of Libra has pushed Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies from the “fringes of fintech” to the mainstream.

Cryptocurrencies, especially BTC, are now heavily covered on major news networks like Bloomberg and CNBC, and some of the main financial regulators in the world, including the IMF, have shared their thoughts on the future of crypto.

All of this, Bitwise believes, is because of Facebook. While it’s still too early to tell whether Libra will ever see the light of day, it has already changed the way cryptocurrencies are talked about. Even the U.S. Congress held hearings on crypto two days in a row with both the House and the Senate, with several policymakers advocating for Bitcoin and against Facebook.

Many have argued that having the prying eyes of the government pointed at cryptocurrencies is a bad thing. Bitwise disagrees, saying it was an extremely positive development for the industry.

“The reason this matters now is that by forcing crypto onto center stage, Facebook’s Libra and other catalysts have changed the nature of conversations that investors are having about crypto around the world,” it said in the letter.

Facebook’s hearings with Congress have made people realize cryptocurrencies aren’t a fad that can be ignored, forcing both the public and regulators to take them seriously. There have been, of course, negative ramifications from the increased government attention, Bitwise said.

However, the company believes that even this scrutiny will be good for crypto in the long term, as it will assure new investors that they were entering a mature and regulated system. Bitwise concluded that Facebook’s Libra has “fast-forwarded two or three years into crypto’s future,” making July an enormously bullish month for Bitcoin in the long term.

The post Bitwise: Facebook’s Libra accelerated Bitcoin’s progress by three years appeared first on CryptoSlate.

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