ICE CEO Explains Why NYSE Decided To Make An Investment In Bitcoin Technology

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Shares of exchange operator Intercontinental Exchange Inc ICE are up around 20 percent year-over-year and the company is exploring newer areas for growth like bitcoins.

 

Jeff Sprecher, IEC CEO and NYSE chairman, was on CNBC recently to discuss the company’s growth and its investment in bitcoin technology.

 

Doing Well On Earnings Front

 

“We are doing really well,” Sprecher said. “Our earnings were up 26 percent year-over-year in the first-quarter. So, clearly there’s a lot of volatility in the world and it’s driving a lot of trading and risk-management and we have been doing quite well from an earnings standpoint and that’s what investors want to know."

 

Getting A Lot Of Business

 

On most of the company’s growth coming from areas other than cash equity trading on the NYSE, Sprecher said, “Well, we help people manage risk, whether its risk of owning stocks and equities, but also managing the price of oil for example. We set the world’s price of oil. You can imagine over the last few months as the price of oil has moved around, people are trying to manage their exposure to oil and so we have been really getting a lot of business from around the world.”

 

Bitcoins

 

Sprecher was asked about the investment that NYSE has made in bitcoin technology. He replied, “I think, there is something to it. I think, there is something here that’s why we have invested in it. We have been working on it for over a year trying to understand it, which you know it’s a new language for us lay people. But there’s something going on here.”

 

“Young people, millenials trust their app and how many stars you give a driver, more than they trust the New York Taxi Department who vets and gives a medallion to a taxi driver and in the same way we are seeing millenials trust a currency that is really created in the ether, more than they trust a fiat currency by a government,” Sprecher concluded. 

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Posted In: CNBCMedia
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