Digital collateral “changes everything,” says Abra CEO Bill Barhydt

Episode 44 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra.

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As the crypto market matures, owners of “pristine” digital assets will increasingly be able to use their holdings as collateral for an array of financial services, according to Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra.

Founded in 2014, crypto wealth management platform Abra closed a $55 million Series C last September led by IGNIA and Blockchain Capital.

In this episode of The Scoop, Barhydt explains why the recent Terra blow-up has no impact on crypto’s disruptive potential, and how a new wave of crypto-backed financial products promises to unlock more utility for long-term holders.

As Barhydt explains,

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“Most banks won’t recognize crypto — I don’t even know any that will recognize crypto when they’re trying to figure out your financial status, when you’re trying to qualify for a mortgage…”

Just last month, Abra announced a partnership with Propy — the company who sold a Florida home for $650,000 using an NFT — allowing crypto holders to apply for loans using their crypto as collateral.

While Abra is “not financing homes yet,” allowing long-term crypto holders to use their digital assets as collateral for down payments on property is a sign of maturity for the asset class, according to Barhydt.

If crypto can become pristine digital collateral like Barhydt imagines, he believes the implications will be felt around the world:

“The banking system knows that I have this much bitcoin, it lends me this amount of money to complete my payments, and that’s debited later — that’s a much more efficient way to process credit transactions in countries where there is no credit scoring system, which is most countries, so having a kind of digital collateral changes everything.”

During this episode, Chaparro and Barhydt also discuss:

• Decentralization and systemic risk
• The importance of research before investing
• Crypto narratives worth watching

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River
Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Coinbase Prime
Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.

About Cross River
Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

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