David Sacks: Cryptocurrency fulfills PayPal's 'original vision'

[krishnapramod]

PayPal's former COO said in an interview that bitcoin is fulfilling PayPal's original vision to create "the new world currency." Some of the interesting points in this conversation.

Bitcoin becoming the new world currency.

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are now fulfilling that original vision. They are doing it in a decentralized way (with a decentralized database called the blockchain) whereas PayPal tried to do it in a centralized way.

Reply to Howard Marks comment that Bitcoin and other digital assets aren't real.

Marks isn't wrong to raise an alarm bell about speculation, but he's wrong in saying it's not "real." That's like saying software isn't real. Of course it's real.

Did the U.S. dollar become less real when it stopped being backed by gold? Cryptocurrency is the next step in that same evolution — to make currency more virtual.

Why people living in politically and financially unstable countries are quick to adopt bitcoins?

Bitcoin enforces its scarcity through a combination of cryptography and economic incentives ("cryptoeconomics"). A lot of people find that more comforting than relying on the good faith of a government. In math we trust.

People in parts of the world with less trusted systems have gotten it sooner because almost anything would be preferable to having their life's work trapped in a fiat currency that could collapse or be confiscated at any moment.

Cyptocurrencies and dot-com era, programmable money.

For those of us who lived through the dot-com era, this feels reminiscent. You have some of the same speculative excess and random enrichment. But you can also feel that something revolutionary is happening. Money is being made programmable. That's a fundamental change with implications we can still barely see.

Rather than being bullish or criticizing bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, undstanding the potential of cryptos, Sacks makes some interesting valid points.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/david-sacks-cryptocurrency-interview.html

[cybersofts]

Well, PayPal failed to comply with the word term "Decentralized" and yet bitcoin is bringing back that to the masses.
PayPal tend to control online payments by centralizing everything in one place, thank god that they are getting out of the way soon enough.

[Red-Apple]

the thing about cryptocurrencies, which is also why bitcoin is becoming this famous these days, is the decentralization. and that is something that PayPal could never have had visualized! actually that is something impossible to do with any fiat currency.

i see in the near future that PayPal will feel the threat of bitcoin more and eventually starts offering some services regarding bitcoin to get back some of the market that they lost due to bitcoin.

[chixka000]

This may sound really funny but  when i read the title first my thoughts was about the fees. I thought the COO is trying to tell us that bitcoin is fulfilling the first ambition of paypal to create a high fee currency lol

[LeGaulois]

Well, PayPal failed to comply with the word term "Decentralized" and yet bitcoin is bringing back that to the masses.
PayPal tend to control online payments by centralizing everything in one place, thank god that they are getting out of the way soon enough.

Did you know, Paypal is much more than a payment processor. It is involved in a lot of other activities. For example, Paypal created an algorithm to track how the money is circulating worldwide. It is so efficient that some gov. use it to fight illegal funds and other illegal activities. They have a Lab looking like 2025

[audaciousbeing]

PayPal's former COO said in an interview that bitcoin is fulfilling PayPal's original vision to create "the new world currency." Some of the interesting points in this conversation.

Bitcoin becoming the new world currency.

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are now fulfilling that original vision. They are doing it in a decentralized way (with a decentralized database called the blockchain) whereas PayPal tried to do it in a centralized way.

Reply to Howard Marks comment that Bitcoin and other digital assets aren't real.

Marks isn't wrong to raise an alarm bell about speculation, but he's wrong in saying it's not "real." That's like saying software isn't real. Of course it's real.

Did the U.S. dollar become less real when it stopped being backed by gold? Cryptocurrency is the next step in that same evolution — to make currency more virtual.

Why people living in politically and financially unstable countries are quick to adopt bitcoins?

Bitcoin enforces its scarcity through a combination of cryptography and economic incentives ("cryptoeconomics"). A lot of people find that more comforting than relying on the good faith of a government. In math we trust.

People in parts of the world with less trusted systems have gotten it sooner because almost anything would be preferable to having their life's work trapped in a fiat currency that could collapse or be confiscated at any moment.

Cyptocurrencies and dot-com era, programmable money.

For those of us who lived through the dot-com era, this feels reminiscent. You have some of the same speculative excess and random enrichment. But you can also feel that something revolutionary is happening. Money is being made programmable. That's a fundamental change with implications we can still barely see.

Rather than being bullish or criticizing bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, undstanding the potential of cryptos, Sacks makes some interesting valid points.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/david-sacks-cryptocurrency-interview.html

Even though I dont fully agree with the comment he made there but one obvious thing I see is the recognition given to bitcoin and the blockchain technology which is something I see as a plus and at the same time a further confidence in the industry and for even comparing it with a worldwide processor like PayPal that they set out to achieve the same objective, then its not a small thing which I hope it will continue and more people who are important in the financial world can come out and do same.

[pushups44]

If Paypal aimed to be a world currency, it failed miserably. It is known as an obnoxious monopolistic company charging exorbitant fees, especially for users of eBay and other online services. I'd love for crytocurrencies to drive this company into oblivion. Paypal corrupts everything it touches.

[bitgolden]

PayPal was expected to do more than it is achieving today, but too bad for it. They restricted some countries from making use of their services, how stupid of them. Now here is Bitcoin; Bitcoin is achieving more and more and is also decentralized. It will achieve twice what PayPal is supposed to achieve and PayPal will end up as dust.

[BitcoinBarrel]

PayPal is the worst! I've been scammed several times and been on both sides of the transaction (selling digital goods and buying digital goods) and they ALWAYS side with the scammer. It's ridiculous.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

PayPal is the worst! I've been scammed several times and been on both sides of the transaction (selling digital goods and buying digital goods) and they ALWAYS side with the scammer. It's ridiculous.

My girlfriend runs an online shop & we've been scammed several times. Bitcoin could be so much better than Paypal, I mean look at Paypal fees, they are ridiculous.

[hitlab]

Whether you like paypal or not, i think this is a very high quality interview. Paypal and a bunch of other companies in the 90s-2000s were attempting to create digital currencies and a lot of bitcoin's cryptography is based on those early currencies. They only failed in the end because they were centralized.

[hatshepsut93]

When Bitcoin was at $200 for 2 years, people were saying that it's dead, but now everyone suddenly became Bitcoin believers and decentralization advocates after the price crossed $4,000. And there were no significant changes to Bitcoin, aside from SegWit. It seems like most experts don't have their own strong opinion on Bitcoin's technology, and simply base their views on current Bitcoin's price.

PayPal is the worst! I've been scammed several times and been on both sides of the transaction (selling digital goods and buying digital goods) and they ALWAYS side with the scammer. It's ridiculous.

There are scams in Bitcoin's ecosystem too, but you can choose from many escrows, so it's much better than centralized payment systems.

[BitcoinBarrel]

When Bitcoin was at $200 for 2 years, people were saying that it's dead, but now everyone suddenly became Bitcoin believers and decentralization advocates after the price crossed $4,000. And there were no significant changes to Bitcoin, aside from SegWit. It seems like most experts don't have their own strong opinion on Bitcoin's technology, and simply base their views on current Bitcoin's price.

PayPal is the worst! I've been scammed several times and been on both sides of the transaction (selling digital goods and buying digital goods) and they ALWAYS side with the scammer. It's ridiculous.

There are scams in Bitcoin's ecosystem too, but you can choose from many escrows, so it's much better than centralized payment systems.

Most of the scams I have encountered with PayPal are chargeback scams or PayPal reversing payments because of unauthorized account access. With Bitcoin, once you receive the funds there is no 3rd party that can just take your money out of your account like PayPal. It's unfair because PayPal account holders that are negligent in securing their accounts should be held liable for damages caused by their carelessness. Instead I have to foot the bill even after I have already provided a product or service.

[Kprawn]

Well the Bitcoin market cap passed that of PayPal and it will soon take a majority of their business, if they do not change

their attitude towards their customers. This centralized authority used their monopoly to push people around and to force

them to play by their rules. They never though something like Bitcoin will come around and disrupt their monopoly. The

Lightning network will be the final nail in their coffin. 

[tavogi.com]

Something people often overlook when comparing Paypal to Bitcoin is how much easier it is to get started using Bitcoin. With Paypal you have to give up all kinds of private information and to really use it fully you have to tie it to a bank account. Even if you don't care about privacy, the hassle of getting started compared to Bitcoin is a factor.

Then on top of that there issues when sending money internationally, chargebacks being at Paypal's discretion, Paypal being able to freeze your account for any reason, etc. The difference between Bitcoin and Paypal is already comparable to the difference between something like Netflix and Blockbuster, and Bitcoin is only going to keep getting better.

[Yoandy10]

I'm glad that PayPal COO recognized how blockchain technology WILL end up making payment processors like PayPal obsolete. PayPal, especially, is complete garbage.

[d5000]

Very interesting interview, thanks for sharing! Above all, I liked the part about blockchain use cases. (He didn't address the hard problem of volatility, though.)

One of the phrases I want to remark because it touches the "most important topic" in this forum (how Bitcoin can make the world a better place can I get rich? ):

The technology is probably 1995 and the pricing is either 1999 or getting close.

If we look at the following pic, we see what that would mean for the Bitcoin price evolution:



In 1995, the NASDAQ composite index was on about 700-800 points, while 1999 it crossed the 2000 points mark. Then, until 2001, it doubled once more until reaching the peak in 2000. That is very much what I expect for the coming 2-3 years: a doubling of the price until late 2018 or early 2019 (after a correction in September/October 2017) and then a sharp correction before we reach $10000. 

[craZyLovE0916]

The reason PayPal is not controlling all internet payments is the system is too complicated to use. It requires knowledge of HTML and coding (even if it is trivial) most people cannot or do not want to learn/do this. You need to let them select all variables easily and include better designs and variables and copy/paste the code into their site which is not like now except the copy/pasting part.

[5trade]

If you checkout peter thiel's book zero to one, the original vision of paypal was to "create a global currency to unseat the US dollar". of course, they totally didn't do that and sold to ebay, instead. something about having no profits and no funding after the dot-com crash.