DAVOS, Switzerland — The crypto faithful shouldn’t expect Bank of America to make a major push into the sector anytime soon.
“No,” replied Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan when Yahoo Finance Live asked him at the World Economic Forum whether he felt like the company was missing out on the next big thing by not aggressively moving into crypto (full interview above).
Moynihan — who has driven a major digital banking transformation as BofA’s CEO for the last 12 years — explained the bank is heavily regulated and that prevents an all-in maneuver into crypto.
The banking industry veteran also said that it’s more fruitful for BofA to continue to focus on what it does — being a bank and encouraging financial freedom.
“Our big thing is helping consumers in America have a successful financial life,” Moynihan said. “Our life plans, financial planning tool— four or five million users— only started three years ago. That’s what you need to do, is get people to learn how to make their money work more for them to help in their lives.”
Despite crypto’s relatively robust presence at the World Economic Forum via various after-parties and the attendance of Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and FTX President Brett Harrison, there remained a heavy skepticism on the digital currency among those Yahoo Finance spoke with.
The recent news is not pretty: Bitcoin’s price recently fell below $30,000 amid a broader rout in all things tech, shares of companies that trade crypto such as Coinbase and Robinhood have been hammered, and the recent collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin felt like a watershed moment to many observers.
Amid the carnage, Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd told Bloomberg bitcoin could plunge to $8,000 and there were now a bunch of “yahoos” in the sector.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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