Yahoo co-founder believes digital currencies will play a significant role in the future of society, even though bitcoin isn’t “quite there yet”.
Speaking at the sidelines of the Fortune Global Forum in China, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang drew parallels to bitcoin’s volatility and technology stocks from the “early days of the internet”. Refreshingly, the early internet pioneer opted to speak about bitcoin as a currency rather than the go-to narrative of its value at a time when bitcoin price struck a new all-time high of $15,000 today.
“Bitcoin as a digital currency is not quite there yet,” he told CNBC. “People are not using it to transact. People are using it as an investable asset.”
Notably, he added:
I personally am a believer in where digital currency can play a role in our society. Especially in, not only the front end of doing transactions but also in the backend of creating a much more efficient system and a much more verifiable system.
Yang’s remarks about digital currencies like bitcoin ring a similar tune to those offered by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who sees bitcoin as a cryptocurrency that is “more genuine and real” than the U.S. dollar and superior to gold as a store of value.
“But for now,” Yang added, “it seems like [bitcoin] is more driven by the hype of investing and getting a return rather than using it as transactional currency.”
The technologists’ opinions on bitcoin are in marked contrast, however, to that of JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon who labelled bitcoin a ‘fraud’ recently. A noted bitcoin skeptic, Dimon has previously said bitcoin “is worth nothing” in 2015, at a time when bitcoin was trading under $300. Yesterday, bitcoin’s soaring price helped propel the entire cryptocurrency market cap ahead of JPMorgan’s $360 billion.
Featured image from Flickr/Yahoo.
Samburaj is Editor of CCN.com, one of the earliest and foremost publications covering blockchain, and financial technology news. Now focusing on Markets, Showbiz, Sports, and Gaming. He has authored over 2,000 articles for CCN.com. Reach him at [email protected]. Visit his LinkedIn profile here.
