Your guide to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Web 3.0

To call the crypto industry a rollercoaster would be an understatement. From incredible highs to incredible lows, it takes a strong stomach and thick skin to stay in the game.

For Omer Amsel, head of Web3 products at Fireblocks, this rollercoaster is what drives the space forward.

“You have your bull markets, and then your bear markets, and then your bull markets,” Amsel told Decrypt at ETH Denver. “And every time, in every phase, there is this main driver of what would be. Last time it was DeFi and NFTs, before it was ICOs, you see all these innovations.”

Amsel pointed to the crash of 2018 and the resulting bear market that led to the DeFi summer and NFT boom as just the latest example of bear market building.

“Crypto has this way of pushing the envelope and then something happens,” he said. “So then it goes back to the drawing board and thinks about what the next thing is. I think that’s the beauty of this business.”

Amsel said the rapid iteration of innovation, even during bear markets, has allowed the industry to quickly close the gap with traditional finance.

Selling “picks and shovels” of innovation

Launched in 2018, Fireblocks provides back-end crypto services for banks and investors.

“Our goal is to provide the picks and shovels for businesses to innovate, scale, and all the while doing it securely,” Amsel said. “If we stick to that mindset, the use cases will come, and we will be able to facilitate them.

“If it’s a bear market now, it will be a bull market later,” he continued. “We believe in the long-term vision of crypto.”

Last January, Fireblocks raised $550 million in a Series E funding round, bringing its valuation to $8 billion. In October, BNY Mellon launched Bitcoin and Ethereum custody services using software developed in collaboration with Fireblocks. In the same month, Fireblocks announced the launch of a new venture, Payments Engine, with payment service Worldpay collaborating on development.

Regardless of the current regulatory environment in the US, Amsel says Fireblocks is focused on technology.

“We are not a qualified trustee,” Amsel said. “We’re just providing the technology so that companies can do what they want to do, maybe in the financial or non-financial area.”

But even as Fireblocks grapples with the technology, he said the company also wants to help educate U.S. officials about blockchain technology and provide an international perspective to policymakers.

“We are an international company,” Amsel said. “We have a presence in Europe, the Americas and APAC (Asia-Pacific), so we have come to the international view. We always make it possible to push the envelope further, and of course we follow the regulations, wherever they may be.”