At the recent Future Investment Initiative (FII) event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, some of the biggest names in crypto gathered to talk about where the industry is heading. The panel, hosted by Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, included Jeremy Allaire, Saifedean Ammous, Ricardo B. Salinas Pliego, and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.
During the discussion, Garlinghouse sounded confident about the road ahead for digital assets. He said the next sixteen years will likely be even better than the last, as crypto moves past speculation and starts finding real, everyday uses in finance and technology.
Garlinhouse’s Confidence in the Future of Crypto
During the event held from October 27 to 30, 2025, Brad Garlinghouse and economist Saifedean Ammous exchanged their views on the future of crypto. Ammous argued that there is still no global consensus on how digital assets should evolve.
Garlinghouse agreed, saying crypto remains in its early phase since no single approach or framework dominates the space yet. He highlighted that companies like Circle are beginning to show real-world use cases, especially with stablecoins, marking progress toward practical adoption.
He added that the next sixteen years will be about growth and real utility, as crypto shifts from being mainly about value storage or speculation to powering meaningful, everyday applications.
“The next 16 years, I think, will be better than the last 16 years because you’ll finally see applications emerging that up until now have just been the store of value, story, or speculation,” Garlinghouse said.
Bitcoin is Digital Gold
Ammous explained that Bitcoin is like digital gold, but better for today’s global economy because crypto is easier to use for payments. Since the world economy relies on moving money fast, across borders, gold physically cannot keep up, and also politically sensitive because gold is centralized.
He said, “Most businesses deal across International borders, and they need their money to move. And you know, when the digital economy money’s speed is increasing more and more, and therefore gold is physically cannot keep up physically because I think it’s too politically centralized and politically sensitive.”
He also pointed out that Bitcoin is faster and more practical for moving money globally and directly without needing banks to clear payments. This is why Bitcoin has grown so much more than gold in value in the past sixteen years, and Ammous expects this trend to continue.
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