Bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency market have been waiting to break into the financial ecosystem for quite some time now. U.S President Donald Trump’s recent tweets have only fast-tracked the process.
In a tweetstorm yesterday, the President claimed that Bitcoin was not really money and that it was only used for fraudulent activities. While the tweet went viral, it did not have much of an effect on the price of the world’s largest digital asset. In a recent Bloomberg video, Ryan Selkis, Founder of Messari Capital, addressed the same and spoke about how Bitcoin has its own inherent advantages and how it is vastly different from Facebook’s Libra.
Selkis said that comparing Bitcoin to Libra was like comparing apples to oranges. However, he also admitted that Libra’s announcement had trained the spotlight on Bitcoin. In the Messari Capital Founder’s words,
“In my opinion, Bitcoin will not become a useful currency for usage in the mainstream environment. But I do think that BTC will rival gold to become a standard for a store of value and that is a sentiment that is shared by many in the space.”
The Messari executive further stated that with Facebook’s announcement, Libra should draw most of the ire and attention away from Bitcoin. A popular belief in the cryptocurrency community is that Libra will become popular with the younger crowd, something that Selkis agreed with. Despite the mix of positive and negative reactions Libra has received, officials from the company have come forward to put out any fire in the public forum.
Christina Smedley, Head of Marketing and Blockchain at Facebook, assured users that the Libra bandwagon’s multiple partners will ensure that the cryptocurrency does not become centralized. Smedley also said,
“The association is going to be responsible for taking the Libra network to a permissionless state, and that would begin within 5 years. Facebook will just be one organization in the association.”
The Bloomberg panel also pointed to Ethereum Co-founder Mihai Alise calling Libra a “well-oiled machine of surveillance.” The Co-founder did not think that Libra was going to change the game for the cryptocurrency industry, but rather was a measure to actively manipulate the behaviour of people on a global scale.
