After reaching a high of $20,000 in December 2017 and now falling over 80 percent to $3,500, even the top investor in blockchain, the underlying technology for cryptocurrencies, has no faith in Bitcoin.
The current price of the leading cryptocurrency is now $3,593.81 as of 3:30 p.m. ET–down 0.52 percent in the last 24 hours.
“I do believe it will go to zero. I think it’s a great technology but I don’t believe it’s a currency. It’s not based on anything,” said Jeff Schumacher, founder of BCG Digital Ventures, during a CNBC-hosted panel in Davos, Switzerland.
Schumacher, an investor in blockchain-focused companies, was part of a NBC-hosted panel in Davos, Switzerland. Also speaking was Glenn Hutchins, chairman of North Island, who was more optimistic of the cryptocurrency as a store of value.
“It might be that the role of bitcoin in the system could be to bring value back, to hold your value there while you have tokens that have other use cases that you aren’t using at the moment,” said Hutchins.
However, Hutchins was quick to also cite that blockchain will be the default play in terms of investment.
“I am much less interested in investing around bitcoin as a currency unit or a currency equivalent, or even the blockchain as an accounting ledger. I am thinking much more about the protocols. In other words, what is the underlying protocol going to do as a consequence of which, which tokens are valuable or not,” said Hutchins.
Asia Could Lead Next Generation of Blockchain Tech
Asia could be leading the charge in blockchain technology with new developments in the making, according to 500 Startups Partner Edith Yeung. One area in particular is in payment processing.
“Many developing countries, where just to start with they don’t even have credit cards, there’s no particular infrastructure, it’s almost easier to see sort of blockchain-enabled payments, to see in Asia, you will see more action happening in Asia more than U.S. and Europe,” said Yeung.
Ripple CEO Garlinghouse is anticipating more widespread adoption of blockchain in the next five years. However, Hutchins said the primary focus of consumers will be the results that blockchain delivers as opposed to the technology itself.
“When you send an email out today, you don’t think about the underlying technology you are using … So you can hear us talk about … what protocol, what token, what technology solutions, how many transactions per second, but eventually what’s going to happen is you are going to put something of value in, something of value will come out the other side and you are not going to care what the underlying technology is,” said Hutchins.
“And that’s when you know we’re successful,” he added.
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