Here are some key points he brought up:
The dollar is backed by gold, the gold is the bareback of it. What is behind Bitcoin?
At one point, I think I lost because we value Bitcoin in Dollars. So, it's "backed" by dollar technically, even when we use Bitcoin to pay for something, it's calculated in $.
Bitcoin's core values are the following: Open source, censorship resistant, decentralized, peer-to-peer and verification of rules (everyone can be part and run a full node).
But here's the kicker that I have been thinking about since we talked: He believes the private/public sectors will adopt the Blockchain, the governments, businesses to further improve their systems. But it will NOT be an open Blockchain, rather a Centralized Private Blockchain. It will just be Database replaced with the word Blockchain, same principles. Non-censorship resistant and not open source.
I want to know what you guys' thoughts are on this. How would you counter these arguments? Let me know because this last thing has been bugging me the whole day!
I'm not certain the US dollar is backed by gold in the way people believe it is. There are many who claim the dollar has not been backed by gold since 1971 when dollars could no longer be redeemed for gold on a 1:1 basis.
The price of bitcoin and crypto in US dollars could be labeled moreso an "exchange rate" than a form of backing. There could be a debate on this topic. Whether things like US dollars and bitcoin need to guarantee they can be redeemed for gold/dollars in order to be truly backed.
One of the main advantages of blockchain could be its "trust less" design paradigm whereby it can achieve many of the same functions banks can with fewer workers and manpower being necessary to approve/disapprove transactions under a more "trust based" format.
I think the concept of a private blockchain could be a real possibility although not necessarily a relevent one. There was a transparent website under Obama's administration which showed federal budgets and spending. No one cared enough to look @ it. That's the real issue with the economy, business and finance in this day and age. Everyone wants to have an opinion and no one wants to bother educating themselves or being informed which leads to virtually everyone supporting the wrong policies while refusing to learn from the mistakes of the past.