By It was ten years ago to the month when Satoshi Nakamoto published the famous Bitcoin whitepaper detailing a new type of technology that could very well up-end othe n global financial system as we know it.
This paper was called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”.
Ten years later, one can clearly see how Nakamoto’s legacy has taken the world-by storm. Yesterday on October 1st 2018, former US president Bill Clinton appeared at a cryptocurrency industry conference.
Bill Clinton made an appearance the Swell conference by Ripple which was held this past week in San Francisco. Clinton was the event’s keynote speaker and participated in a Q&A session along with Gene Sperling who was the former president’s economic adviser between 1996 and 2001. Clinton’s speech was sadly not recorded like other conference sessions but a video taken on an attendee’s cellphone revealed a wide-ranging discussion which focussed on Clinton’s two terms served as US president and on occasion the recording revealed that the speech circled back to the topic blockchain technology.
Clinton spoke about the topic toward the end of his remarks and the former president who will forever be remembered for his work in ushering in the commercial use of the internet from that of a fringe technology went on to state that distributed ledger technology (DLT) has “staggering” possibilities due-to the fact that it does not rely on national borders. He did also warn us that the divisive economic and social policies could “ruin it.”
“This whole blockchain deal has the potential it does only because it is applicable across national borders [and] income groups. The permutations and possibilities are staggeringly great,” he said. “We could ruin it all by negative identity politics and economic and social policy. You think about that.”
Former president Clinton also went on to caution the attendees about the nature of the blockchain & cryptocurrency industries, warning that moving too fast could possibly put more scrutiny upon the financial and social inequalities between people in developed and emerging markets.
“The more the benefits materialize, the more you have to be careful about it,” said Clinton according to a recently published report, adding that early adopters of the technologies should avoid “carried away with the immediate financial rewards” which are associated with this class of asset.
“You don’t want consumer fraud, you don’t want to finance criminal enterprises, and you certainly don’t want to make it easier to pull off severe attacks by terrorists,” he continued. “That’s the challenge of each new technology.”
Do you agree with former US president’s stance on taking caution when approaching the world of cryptocurrencies? Let us know your thoughts.
Follow CoinBeat on Facebook, Twitter & Telegram
Subscribe to our CoinBeat Newsletter
Submit an article to CoinBeat
View live Marketcap Prices here
Comments