2018-07-05 Cryptocurrency Won’t Replace Money

[enzo17]

Source: https://www.ccn.com/cryptocurrency-wont-replace-money-due-to-states-centralized-role-ceo-of-russias-biggest-bank/
POSTED IN: BITCOIN OPINION: https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-opinion/
                  NEWS: https://www.ccn.com/news/

Bitcoin proponent and blockchain advocate Herman Gref, the head of Russia’s biggest bank, doesn’t see cryptocurrency replacing fiat money in today’s centralized financial system.

Sberbank CEO Herman Gref was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Astana Finance Days, a Eurasian financial conference in Kazakhstan, when he was asked for his take on the advent of cryptocurrencies and their role as a method of payment, Russian news agency TASS reports.

“Do I see a prospect of the global use of cryptocurrencies as an alternative to fiat money? I don’t see it and I said it many times,” Gref said, before explaining:

“I don’t think that the state is ready to yield its centralized role in an emission of fiat currency to some other decentralized institutions.”

While the remark represents the reality of today’s centralized financial system where a ‘central or reserve’ bank is the only institution that issues fiat currency in a country, there is a growing acceptance of cryptocurrency globally with the likes of Japan legally recognizing bitcoin as a method of payment.

Gref has been a vocal critic of the Russian government’s much-publicized crackdown on cryptocurrencies – until a recent pivot – over the years. In late 2016, the influential banker refreshingly revealed that he was a bitcoiner who actively engaged in fiat-crypto trading as an investment.

Earlier this year, Gref reaffirmed his years-long position in opposing any ban of cryptocurrencies and urged authorities put away their hostility in favor of regulation of decentralized money.

Meanwhile, Gref-led Sberbank became the first Russian bank to join an international blockchain consortium in Hyperledger in 2016 before becoming a member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) in 2017. Sberbank has also piloted money transfers on an IBM-powered blockchain and is poised to test the issuance of tokens from an initial coin offering (ICO) on a central bank regulatory sandbox.

Gref’s comments come at a time when Russia is going through a legislative process of recognizing cryptocurrencies as assets without granting them the legality as monetary instruments for payments.

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[TraderTimm]

A Banker not seeing cryptocurrency replacing money?

Not surprising.

Many people thought cars were an expensive hobbyist fad that would never gain traction, too. Never rely on a prediction from someone whose livelyhood depends on everything remaining the same.

[d5000]

A Banker not seeing cryptocurrency replacing money?

Not surprising.

Well, he's actually a "bitcoin proponent" and "blockchain advocate", according to the article:

In late 2016, the influential banker refreshingly revealed that he was a bitcoiner who actively engaged in fiat-crypto trading as an investment.[...]Gref-led Sberbank became the first Russian bank to join an international blockchain consortium in Hyperledger in 2016 before becoming a member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) in 2017.

The article is a bit unclear, because - what could the state do if "the masses" really wanted to replace fiat with Bitcoin? Gref seems to believe that the institutions emitting and controlling fiat currencies are so strong that the economy would not work without them (e.g. requiring their intervention or authorization of cross-border payments).

But in a real mass adoption event, what could they do to preserve this role? Even if they restricted cryptocurrency use, in many countries they could be removed from government by popular vote ... which is not unlikely if a state is about to criminalize a large part of its citizens (in this case, Bitcoin users).

[darkangel11]

I think he isn't that far from the truth, even if we don't like it and would want BTC to become a world currency. It's not ready to replace fiat and if that happens, it will take decades, not years. Bitcoin is now where the Internet was in the early 80s. It has its advocates, some people are using it every day, but the majority either doesn't like it, doesn't see it as a necessity, doesn't want to learn how to use it or sees no point. Just like in the 80s people were saying: why would I buy a computer, learn how to use it, buy a modem and pay for every minute of it working just to send a letter that I've been successfully sending for the last 30 years?