American Express CEO on Cryptocurrency: High Volatility, Lack of "Utility," No Plans for Crypto-Related Credit Cards in the Short Term

Recent reports from foreign media and the crypto community have cited an interview with American Express CEO on Yahoo Finance, suggesting that American Express is exploring potential alternative solutions for member reward points, possibly involving cryptocurrency. However, this is not the case.

The Yahoo Finance article on 1/25 featured an interview with American Express CEO Stephen Squeri regarding his global economic outlook, but it included excerpts from a previous interview in October last year where he discussed cryptocurrency. This article seems to have been misinterpreted by Cointelegraph as the latest interview, leading to a misunderstanding that American Express is considering using cryptocurrency for reward points.

Viewing Bitcoin as Gold

In an interview on October 26 last year, Stephen Squeri was asked whether American Express would launch a credit card integrated with cryptocurrencies. His response was as follows:

It won't happen in the short term. I think there are three types of cryptocurrencies:

• Traditional category: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple.
• Stablecoins: JPMorgan, Diem.
• CBDC.

I see cryptocurrencies as a type of asset class similar to gold, but in terms of payments, I don't think cryptocurrencies can succeed in the credit card or debit card field. Why?

1. Extremely high volatility.
2. It lacks "service," you can't reflect any usage issues, no reward points, and it doesn't help with credit scoring.

Currently, American Express can be used to purchase stablecoins. We are cautiously monitoring the development of the US CBDC and are looking for alternative solutions for reward points, but I don't think everyone will see us launching cryptocurrency-related credit cards soon.

We won't see anyone using an American Express credit card to trade gold or stocks. Similarly, from my perspective, as an asset class, we won't use credit cards to trade cryptocurrencies. I believe American Express doesn't need to implement this.

Going the Other Way

Over the past year, traditional financial giants such as VISA, PayPal, and Mastercard have been actively deploying in the cryptocurrency field, while American Express has been more cautious. However, the CEO also gave his views and reasons in the interview.

It is worth noting that there is an overwhelming amount of information in the crypto sphere, and there are occasional errors, even fraudulent information, as well as different interpretations due to community positions. For example, the Twitter account with over 800,000 followers, Bitcoin Archive, made a big deal about American Express adopting Bitcoin as reward points, but it did not happen.