Lone Star Credit Union, a small Dallas credit union with $163 million in assets, refers members interested in buying cryptocurrency to BankSocial, a non-custodial wallet provider, which gives buyers control over access to their assets.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Lone Star Credit Union CEO Becky Reed talks about the association and why she is optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies.
Q: What was behind Lone Star's decision to enter the crypto market?
A: It was in late 2021/early 2022 when we noticed our members buying cryptocurrency. At that time, we really thought that our members were not. If you were to ask our executive team and our board, they would say, 'Well, our members don't care about cryptocurrency.' Well, the data showed the opposite.
Q: What did the data show?
A: There is a popular idea that wealthy people buy a lot of cryptocurrency, hold it, sell it and make a lot of money. But the truth is that what we saw was that people were buying it similar to what they would buy with stocks like in E-Trade or something like that. Every time they received a paycheck, they bought $100.
Q: Has that trend changed with the cryptocurrency crash?
A: Now it has decreased drastically. Now it's like recalcitrant people. Maybe 10% of the people who were buying it are still buying it. So we've seen it greatly reduced both in volume and frequency.
Q: So where do you think cryptocurrencies are going?
A: A lot of the hype that was going on in early 2022 in particular, caused a lot of fear of missing out, FOMO. So I think people potentially went into the space because of that without really understanding what they were getting into. And I think there was certainly a custody misunderstanding. You know, who owns the crypto in your walletโฆ But now that some of the negative things have happened in this space, a lot of that fear of missing out has gone. And now the actual use cases and the actual builders in this space have a clue to doing things in a regulated and supported way. I believe that distributed ledger technology, including but not limited to cryptocurrencies, is the future of finance.
Q: What was the benefit of partnering with a non-custodial wallet provider?
A: When you really look at the reason why crypto was created, it was created for self-custodyโฆ Our members were buying it anyway, and in some cases they were buying it on rogue exchanges that were a place that wasn't very regulated. , highly regulated. So BankSocial follows the regulations here in the United States. It is self-custody. Self-custody was something important and we thought, well, let's talk about it.
Q: Does Lone Star offer any financial advice on cryptocurrency?
A: We in no way recommend that people go out and buy cryptocurrency. If you choose to do that, we recommend BankSocial, but it really exists, you know, this is not an investment product, it's not insured, and it's high in volatility and risk. And we at Lone Star don't give you any advice on what to buy.
