Reddit Co-Founder Says Crypto Hype Is Gone – And That's a Good Thing

Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of social media platform Reddit and a VC investor, has said he believes the hype around cryptocurrency has dropped as speculators have fled the market – and that's good for the industry.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance published Friday, Ohanian, said:

Ohanian, citing Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, explained that in the bearish crypto markets only the "true believers" had stayed on. That's a "great" thing, he added, as these are the people who are now developing the infrastructure of the nascent industry.

“And they're actually builders. They're actually building the infrastructure that it's going to take to really make this happen,” he said.

Ohanian further added that the fact JPMorgan is now building a crypto product – even though CEO Jamie Dimon previously called bitcoin a "fraud" – indicates "there is real innovation that is happening now that all the wild speculation is gone."

That said, he acknowledged it's going to take some time before the crypto industry can see the shift, and one needs to take a longer-term view when investing in the space.

"I think that's just generally good advice for any kind of investing, but especially something so nascent as crypto," he said.

This is not the first time Ohanian has offered a positive take on cryptocurrency. In March last year, he said bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are poised to “fuel a potential new internet.”

Ohanian has also put his money where his mouth is. In the Friday's interview, he said that Reddit was a seed investor in crypto exchange Coinbase back in 2011. Most recently, Ohanian also participated in a $28.5 million funding round of a blockchain-based sharing economy startup Origin Protocol.

The site's chief technology officer said last May the platform was also planning to reinstate cryptocurrency as a payment option for its gold members. The option had been stopped due to high fees on the bitcoin network and an integration issue.

Alexis Ohanian image via YouTube