Billionaire FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried says hawkish Fed policy and the dollar's historic climb are weighing on crypto

Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried said stringent monetary policy from the Fed and soaring inflation have weighed on cryptocurrencies this year.

"Dollars are up this year," Bankman-Fried said at the SALT conference in New York on Monday. He is the chief executive officer of FTX, one of the world's most widely used crypto trading platforms.

"This is the year of policy change," he said.

So far in 2022, Bloomberg's Dollar Spot Index has climbed roughly 10%. At the same time, bitcoin, the largest token by market cap, is down 50%, and ether, the second-biggest, is down about 57%.

Still, the 30-year-old remains upbeat about the digital asset sector.

In his view, "more regulatory clarity is coming" which will allow major institutional investors to get involved.

The investment arm of FTX, FTX Ventures, agreed last week to buy 30% of SkyBridge Capital, an investment firm run by Anthony Scaramucci.

With the deal, SkyBridge Capital will use some of those funds to buy $40 million in cryptocurrencies to keep on its balance sheet as a long-term investment, the company said Friday.

Meanwhile, crypto investors are anticipating updates on the oft-delayed Ethereum Merge event, which is slated to happen sometime around Thursday. Experts told Insider that the update to so-called Ethereum 2.0 will slash energy requirements for the blockchain, though some risks remain.