For a while now we’ve been hoping for the big financial players to join in on cryptocurrencies and show their support for them. There are already notable people in the business, financial and entertainment worlds who support and have investments in cryptos. Entertainment stars like DJ Khaled, Ashton Kutcher, Floyd Mayweather and Paris Hilton have all been hyping cryptocurrencies lately.
Even the Django Unchained star, Jamie Foxx, took to Twitter to announce his participation in the Cobinhood token sale late last year.
On the business side of things, there are the Winklevoss brothers who were one of the early believers of the technology going all in on cryptocurrencies and founded one of the biggest exchanges in the space – the Gemini exchange.
The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been a supporter of crypto for years now and in fact, relies on cryptocurrency donations to sustain his company after his Swiss bank account was frozen back in 2010.
Business magnate and notable investor, Sir Richard Branson has continuously shown support for cryptos and believes blockchain technology to be an economic revolution. Over the past 3 years, he’s been hosting the Blockchain Summit in his private Necker Island. He’s also hinted at accepting bitcoin for flights to space on Virgin Galactic.
Despite the support from all these people, cryptocurrencies are yet to gain mass adoption as it is only about 1% of the world’s population are into cryptocurrencies. It’s still almost impossible to live off cryptos as there aren’t nearly enough retailers supporting these currencies. Of course, there are small businesses and boutiques around the world who’ll gladly accept crypto transactions but that isn’t enough.
I'll give credit to where it’s due and show gratitude to the aforementioned people amongst others because we’re where we are today because of them. Bitcoin alone is worth a massive $7K+ today which is much more than gold and silver. In fact, just two years back it was worth only a couple hundred dollars now look how far we’ve come.
With only 1% of the population in on cryptos the market cap has reached highs of $800B imagine if that number was 5%, how big would the market be? Like a snowball effect people would be joining in at a much faster rate than currently, the fiat system would collapse and the economic revolution Sir Richard Branson hinted at would be in full force.
If you see things in this perspective, you can really understand why people who’ve become dependent on the old financial system are scared the sh+t out by Bitcoin. To them both Bitcoin the blockchain and bitcoin the currency represents the end of an era which served them very well. It is like food is about to be taken from under their noses and there’s nothing they can do about. By nothing, I mean blockchain and cryptocurrencies are going to succeed whether they like it or not and it’s only a matter of time.
Which is why I think the richest people on the planet, according to Forbes, are being so cynical about cryptocurrencies.
Jeff Bezos
Number 1 on Forbes richest people in the world, Jeff Bezos is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Amazon and has a net worth of over $100B. He made most of his fortune during the dotcom bubble founding Amazon and his company has taken huge strides to becoming the mammoth it is today, leading its CEO to be the first ever centi-billionaire (100).
Now there are many similarities between the dotcom bubble and cryptocurrencies and you would assume that someone who’s become a centi-billionaire then would have something to say about cryptocurrencies. Nada, Jeff Bezos has yet to utter a single word about cryptocurrencies which I find suspicious. I’ll get back to this suspicion later.
Bill Gates
Second on Forbes richest list, Bill Gates who need no introduction by now as he’s been on this list for as long as I have known of such a list. The former number 1 richest man is the founder of Microsoft which to this day is still the most popular and used operating systems in the world. Not only that but Microsoft has also made hundreds of acquisitions over the past few decades and has even diversified to the mobile (Nokia, etc.) and video gaming industries with its widely popular Xbox consoles.
Mr. Bill Gates isn’t a billionaire by chance and is not looking to drop out of being one any time soon. Unlike his successor on the Forbes list, Bill has had a lot to say about cryptocurrencies in particular. He’s accused cryptocurrencies for having caused deaths in a fairly direct way for being used to buy drugs. This sure isn’t good for cryptocurrency adoption especially since it comes from the 2nd richest man in the world and I’m starting to understand why the general public is yet to take the leap into crypto.
Anyways let’s move to the next in line, the 3rd richest person in the world according to Forbes.
Warren Buffett
Mr. Warren Buffet has also been on this list for as long as I can remember, he currently ranks 3rd on the Forbes richest list. Warren Buffett is arguably the best investor in the world and is idolized by many in the investment and finance worlds. It is without a doubt that where he leads people always tend to follow his moves, surely he’ll be the person to put cryptocurrencies in the spotlight for everyone to follow.
Well, he did just that. In an interview, he did back in 2014 with CNBC, one of the biggest business and financial news channel in the world which attracts the wealthiest audience than any other television channel in the USA.
Here’s what he had to say to that audience:
“Stay away from it. It’s a mirage, basically … it’s a method of transmitting money.” “The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view.”
Stay away they did at least most of them. Then in December when cryptocurrencies were on a bull run and bitcoin reaching all-time highs of $20 000 a coin people were asking questions wondering if they should invest in bitcoin. Could Warren Buffett have been wrong; could he have finally made the wrong investment call?
Well, people didn’t have to wait long as he was back on CNBC early in January 2018 just a month since bitcoin hit the record highs of $20 000. Finally, he might be ready to tell people of how great bitcoin is to the millions of people watching.
Here’s what he had to say this time around:
“In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say almost with certainty that they will come to a bad ending. Now, when it happens or how, or anything else, I don’t know.”
Just like that had dealt another blow to the reputation of cryptocurrencies in front of the wealthiest audience in America. As “fate” would have it bitcoin went from $14K to $7K within a month that’s a 50% loss in 1 month. Coincidence? Maybe.
Let’s move on to Forbes 5th richest person in the world because the first three were of no help at all.
Mark Zuckerberg
Finally, we get to someone who’ll get it. He’s young, founded the biggest social media platform in the world (Facebook), plus he understands technology and where it’s headed. Will he be the one to come to the rescue of cryptocurrencies after their hammering by his neighbor billionaires? Surely he’ll come through and let the world know how great cryptocurrencies are.
In a Facebook post a few months back, Mark Zuckerberg had stated that he was faced with a challenge to fix Facebook and one of the issues facing the technology industry is the concept of centralization vs. decentralization. He continued on to say that technology companies become dominant and governments used technology to monitor its citizens and that people believe technology is becoming a controlling, centralized power.
He then pointed out that this could be countered upon through encryption and cryptocurrencies which take power from centralized systems and puts it into the hands of the individual, noting that they come with a risk of being uncontrollable. He said he’s interested to dig deeper and analyze the negative and positives of these technologies and how to best integrate them into their services.
I was happy to finally hear some positive things come from a highly influential individual like Mark Zuckerberg. With Facebook's adoption of the technology and its 2 billion active monthly users, we would see a faster approach towards mass adoption.
To my surprise a few days later I woke to the news that Facebook was banning all cryptocurrency related ads to protect its users from scams. What!? Just when I was starting to think that there’s some hope with the elite that has such powers to steer people’s perception about crypto. But all they seem to do is hinder and try to prevent its success.
Conclusion
I have great respect for all these people but it seems like they’re determined to crush this technology. Obviously, these guys are no fools and if I can understand the importance of this technology so can they. It can't be just a coincidence that four of the richest people in the world all fail to show support for it.
What am I missing, what are we not being told?
I think I know what it is and why they seem to hate cryptocurrencies. I will share those thoughts in my next post which will be a part two to this one as this has become a lengthy post on its own. What are your thoughts on the matter? Please share them in the comments section below.
Until the next one, take care!
News & image sources:
https://www.pexels.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/
http://neckerblockchainsummit.com/
https://coinmarketcap.com/
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/mark-zuckerbergs-personal-challenge-for-2018-fix-facebook.html
https://cointelegraph.com/news/from-the-internet-to-crypto-how-the-worlds-richest-have-sized-things-up
