TBW - Joseph Lubin (ConsenSys): "I always thought that companies and governments would adopt cryptos"

The Big Whale: America, Europe, Asia... You travel a lot to meet local businesses and ecosystems. How do you see the market?

Joseph Lubin: There's clearly been a change since Trump's election. It's not the only factor, but things have been so complicated in the US over the last 2 years that the contrast is obvious.

Since 2022, a lot of the industry has had to operate very cautiously, very conservatively, because of the threat of sanctions from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We didn't face the same thing in the 1990s at the start of the Internet, at least not with the same intensity.

With Gary Gensler's scheduled departure as head of the SEC (he announced his departure on 20 January, ed. note) and Trump's appointments to the White House and the administration, things are going to change quite a bit. We're going to be able to develop this industry like never before.

Donald Trump announced a lot of things during his campaign. He wants to promote American mining, create a bitcoin strategic reserve, relax regulations... What do you see as the most important measure?

I could be wrong, but I think the most important announcement is about regulation. It's already started with Gensler's departure and it needs to continue with concrete measures like stopping lawsuits and notices against crypto companies that have launched tokens or are doing staking.

A lot of companies (ConsenSys is one of them, ed) have spent fortunes defending themselves and responding to SEC charges. This has been a huge waste of money and time.

If things normalise and we get back to a normal framework, investors will come back, start-ups will be able to concentrate on their development and everything will speed up.

What do you think of the idea of a strategic reserve? We can see that Bitcoin has become an almost commonplace topic of discussion. Even companies like Microsoft are being asked about it!

I've always thought that companies and governments would embrace cryptos, so I'm not surprised.

Where the strategic reserve is concerned, it is indeed quite a project. If it goes ahead, there will be bitcoin, but I think there will also be another token because the reserve will be linked to stablecoins and bitcoin doesn't have many links with that universe.

What token are you thinking of?

Ethereum is very connected to the stablecoin universe.

ConsenSysannounced further redundancies a few weeks ago. Are you still paying for the consequences of the Bear Market?

The ecosystem is changing fast and you have to know how to adapt with slightly smaller, more agile teams. The empowerment of Linea, which is about to launch its token, is one of the most important elements of this strategy.

There's Linea, but also MetaMask, ConsenSys' most important project, which is facing increasing competition. Aren't you afraid of being caught up?

It's not as easy as that to compete with MetaMask! Despite what some people say, we are still the leading wallet (30 million users, editor's note), especially in the Ethereum universe. Where we have a real challenge is with Bitcoin and Solana. Our snaps (plugins) system allows access to these networks, and we're seeing successful snaps being integrated into the main interface.

What have you recently launched with MetaMask?

We have several priorities: expanding our presence outside Ethereum, improving the user experience, and we've implemented gasless transactions. If you run out of ether but have other tokens, we can still perform the transaction - at the same cost.

We've also launched our MetaMask card, which is generating quite a bit of excitement. It's currently available in beta in Europe and the UK, with a US beta launch imminent.