Although the opinion about cryptocurrencies and their potential varies a lot, the perception of Blockchain technology is more or less uniform throughout the world. The big industries, companies, governments and even central banks have recognized that the chain of blocks is a great advance for humanity. However, there are people who do not share this way of thinking, among them, the well-known professor Nouriel Roubini.
Roubini… what are his beliefs?
Roubini has made a name in the cryptographic mute for being one of its main detractors. He not only believes that digital currencies are little more than a scam, but considers that Blockchain technology “is not better than an Excel spreadsheet”.
His latest statements in this regard were made during the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he said that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were the mother and father of all bubbles, while Blockchain was nothing more than a “luxurious database” that was clearly “overrated”.
No place for crypto?
In addition, he assured that neither the digital currencies nor the chain of blocks have a place in the next fintech revolution. “I think there’s going to be a revolution in financial services. That revolution is called fintech, “he said. “But my fintech reading is that it has nothing to do with Blockchain, and nothing to do with cryptography.”
For this critic, everything Blockchain technology does can be done by other means and even private companies, such as IBM, have achieved better solutions. Although IBM has also shown that it believes in the potential of the block chain.
On the cryptocurrencies its position is even harder. The professor at the University of New York explains that a payment system based on digital currencies will never succeed because it is inefficient and slow.
“In the case of Bitcoin, you can only do something like 5 transactions per second. Visa allows you to make 25,000 transactions per second, “he said.
He also assured that central banks would never have anything like a digital currency of their own, since “those things will never have anything to do with cryptocurrencies or block chains.”
And if the case arises in which one of these financial institutions decides to launch its own digital currency, then it would go back to all obsolete cryptocurrencies and dominate the current digital payment systems, such as PayPal. According to him, the reason for this is quite clear: “Why would you use those and pay a small fee, when you could do it for free with a central bank?”
Cryptocurrencies… about to get obsolete?
Roubini rejoiced with the results of the bear market in 2018, assuring that his predictions were correct and soon the cryptocurrencies and Blockchain would be considered the obsolete technology that they have always been.
However, the cryptographic community remains firm that the disappearance of digital currencies is not a possible scenario at this time; in fact, many assure that there can not be a future without them. And as for Blockchain, too many governments and companies are using this technology and obtaining excellent results, so it is unlikely that in the near future they will catalog the block chain as an obsolete technology.