Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey described blockchain technology as “the next big unlock… something that at first is normally applied to accounting terms, but has the potential to be applied to so much more.”
In an interview earlier this week at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, The Verge asked Dorsey about his other company Square’s business, the future of banking, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and more.
“There are so many problems we can help solve with blockchain that are not just related to finance, but finance is an obvious one,” Dorsey stated.
“I think there are going to be a bunch of people who say, ‘Blockchain, let’s go apply it everywhere’ and ‘Let’s try to solve every single problem with it,’” Dorsey said, “in the same way that we try to solve every problem with machine learning and data science and deep learning and artificial intelligence. And I think we need to be more thoughtful. What are people struggling with? How does the technology help them progress or does it distract them?”
Dorsey also spoke about Bitcoin accepted as a form of payment on his app Square since 2014 and that he personally invests in the cryptocurrency and has friends ask him how to acquire Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
“I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, and I have a lot of friends and family who are not into technology,” Dorsey said. “Over the holidays, one of the things I kept getting asked by people I know is, ‘You work in technology, you work in finance, how do I buy bitcoin?’ I asked, ‘Why do you want to buy Bitcoin?’ And they said, ‘Well I heard it’s a fast easy way to make money… someone said it’s like digital gold.’”
Meanwhile, economist Howard Marks, who has called past market bubbles has stated he “doesn’t understand what gives Bitcoin value.” Maybe Marks should talk to Dorsey and start to understand how the blockchain technology can not only change finance but can change the world through projects like helping farmers gain more profit on sales of their cows or FileCoin to enable a decentralized file storage platform. Just a few examples of what is possible with blockchain technology.
These are the visions of the future, and it looks extremely bright for the cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and FinTech.