My participation at the Mint-EY Digital Innovation Summit that happened yesterday gave me some deep insights into how many people at the event were lacking knowledge about cryptocurrencies.
I'll try to keep my observations brief on this subject.
Cryptocurrencies are illegal. I had two senior level execs from the IT industry say this. It's infact an ignorant comment because the fact is cryptocurrencies are not illegal nor legal. It is not legal tender but there is no issue in trading or possession.
Lack of initiative taking ability to experiment with cryptocurrencies. It takes a tiny sum of money, INR 500 to INR 1000 to purchase your first cryptocurrencies though one of the various peer-to-peer exchanges in India. KYC takes few mins to a day for most exchanges however exchanges are there where you can trade without kyc. Some of them haven't even tried this approach to see how it feels to hold some digital currency.
Lacking imagination. Paper based FIAT currency is better even if it's backed by thin air and imposed by the government. The willingness to question why FIAT currency might not be real money and why cryptocurrencies may have an edge as they are opt-in only. No one is forcing you to accept they are currency or money or store of value.
Pro-blockchain, pro-decentralisation, pro-transparency, pro-public ledger, pro-trustless transactions, pro-solutions driven by blockchain tech but anti-crypto. Do you see a problem here? How can we trust a permissioned blockchain or a centralised blockchain in the public sector. Tokenisation or not if it's not decentralised and open to anonymous audit we cannot really minimise the trust required from any single actor on the network.
Skepticism is healthy but ignorance is dangerous. There are many skeptics of the of the technology but that remains mostly due to lack of awareness. India needs a great shift in it's approach to cryptocurrencies. There is a dire need for a learning based journey and educating the masses, starting with the Indian IT sector on the inner workings on these emerging technologies.
Nearly all of the people I interacted with at the event are capable of doing all the different types of transactions required in the world of cryptocurrencies. But the lack of a desire to attempt to try and learn is what separates them from those who are liberal in their approach to this space and willing to see things for what they truly are and not what is projected to them by the media or the government.
That's all for now. I am considering doing some followup pieces around this at a later date.
If you like my work kindly resteem it to your friends. You may also continue reading my recent posts which might interest you:
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- Emerging Deep Technologies, Mint-EY Digital Innovation Summit, 2019
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