Americans view the cryptocurrency industry as disruptive to the established order, a panellist said at the fourth annual International Tech Summit.

Jason Park is head of business development in the Bermuda office of Bittrex Global, whose Seattle-based sister company Bittrex is closing its American operations at the end of April.

Bittrex co-founder Richie Lai said recently that the move is due to “continued regulatory uncertainty and a lack of interest from US regulators regarding sensible policies that will foster innovation and enhance the American economy”.

Before joining Bittrex, Mr Park worked at the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the blockchain and digital asset trade association that promotes the acceptance and use of digital assets and blockchain-based technologies.

He said: “I used to go to the (Capitol) Hill, educate senators and staffers about blockchain technology, what bitcoin is, in general.

“Frankly, this was about three years ago, they really think crypto almost as a threat to the existing regime that the US currently enjoys.

“The US has won the dot.com war. I mean, you have Amazon, Apple, Microsoft – they’re all US companies.

“They don’t want to kind of disrupt their current regime, and almost see crypto as a threat to what they have right now.”

Mr Park added: “Other countries are seeing it as opportunity. This might be the next internet, so that’s why other countries are willing to take more risks and invest in the space.”

He made the comments while sitting on the panel “Building through the Bull and the Bear”.

Mr Park was joined by Pascal St-Jean, the president of 3iQ, the Canadian digital asset management firm; and Sean Reel, executive director of Ignite Bermuda.

The panel was moderated by Mike McGlone, senior macro strategist at Bloomberg.