Yesterday, during an interview on ARK’s Invest podcast, technology mogul Elon Musk praised Bitcoin and other digital currencies as “quite brilliant” and “a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper”.
The Tesla CEO is known for his support of strong support of innovative technologies, which is reflected in his career as an entrepreneur. He has founded multiple technology companies that seek to revolutionize various sectors, from transport and power storage to space exploration and colonizing of Mars.
However, Musk does not plan to implement cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology into his existing businesses. He commented about his automotive company in particular: “It would not be a good use of Tesla resources to get involved in crypto. We’re just really trying to accelerate the advance of sustainable energy.”
While he continued praising Bitcoin’s structure and cryptocurrencies’ ability to bypass currency controls, he did have a critique, saying that “one of the downsides of crypto is that computationally it is quite energy intensive. So there have to be some kind of constraints on the creation of crypto. But it’s very energy intensive to create the incremental Bitcoin at this point.” Musk also does not hold any sizeable amount of cryptocurrency. In February 2018, he tweeted that he held 0.25 BTC, which a friend had gifted him.
Elon Musk’s positive yet hesitant to investment approach to cryptocurrency is reflected in the attitudes of many other influencers and financial industry leaders around the world. Musk is only the most recent in a long line of people who see blockchain technology and the digital assets built on them as the future.
The latest prominent figure to promote cryptocurrencies is Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey. Dorsey calls Bitcoin the “native currency of the Internet” and has made plans to integrate it into his two businesses. Both of these platforms will benefit greatly from this implementation, both in profits and benefits for customers.
Mike Novogratz, an important figurehead in the crypto space, dubbed Bitcoin as “digital gold”, adding that, “Bitcoin is going to be a place where you have sovereign money, it’s not U.S. money, it’s not Chinese money, it’s sovereign. Sovereignty costs a lot, it should.”
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/elon-musk-bitcoin-has-quite-brilliant-structure-paper-money-is-going-away, image from PHONANDROID
