David Mercer (데이비드 머서), CEO of institutional trading platform operator LMAX Group, argued that the cryptocurrency industry needs more centralisation to move to its next stage of growth.

According to a recent CoinDesk report, Mercer said, "Centralisation solves the coordination problem," adding, "When buyers and sellers participate in a single central market, they can obtain the optimal price."

He said decentralisation experiments have historically converged on centralised coordination points. From early P2P marketplaces to decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols that intervened during crises, market participants have relied on trusted exchanges, governance structures and settlement mechanisms whenever volatility increased, he added.

Mercer cited the absence of traditional finance core infrastructure in today’s crypto market as the biggest constraint, including credit relationships, clearing brokers and prime brokerage. He said he supports blockchain technology itself, but that instant settlement and on-chain records alone are insufficient to underpin global capital markets. "The world today is built on leverage and credit, and it will remain that way," he said.

He also pointed to problems in moving collateral. Traditional assets, digital assets and stablecoins currently operate in separate regulatory environments, making it impossible to move collateral freely. "Stablecoins and tokenised assets will ultimately enable much more efficient collateral management," Mercer said, stressing that achieving this requires credit mechanisms equivalent to those in traditional markets.