Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein isn’t really comfortable with bitcoin, but he doesn’t want to exclude its possible ways to disrupt the accepted prospect of what constitutes “money”.
Speaking with Bloomberg TV for the Goldman Sachs Sustainable Finance Innovation Forum in Manhattan, Blankfein explained that the concept of digital currency gives him a “level of discomfort,” he does not want to write it off out of hand.
“I have a level of discomfort for it, as I have…with anything that’s new,” he reflected, “But I’ve learned in recent times that there’s a many things that work out practically that I don’t love.”
As an instance, Blankfein says that when he first encountered the mobile, he thought it was a ludicrous invention that nobody would want. “I missed that one,” he joked.
He notes that, similarly, men and women have initially expressed discomfort with new incarnations associated with as it has evolved from a hard asset into paper currency backed by a hard asset into its present state as a general currency backed by government fiat.
“Maybe with the new world, something gets backed by consensus,” he was quoted saying, referring to the possibility that cryptocurrency’s value is backed by neither hard assets nor government authority. “Instead from a government fiat, even tho it’s a consensual arrangement by people that agree that it can be worth something.”
Blankfein’s open stance on bitcoin delivers a stark contrast bring back of JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon, who has termed as a cryptocurrency a “fraud” on multiple occasions and he has said that bitcoin investors — a set that includes his daughter — are “stupid”.
“It’s not my natural state of comfort,” Blankfein continued, ?but…even as went into the long run and bitcoins were successful, I will be able to let you know that it was a great all-natural evolution from hard money-.Maybe 220 years from now even someone much might be satisfied with it,” he concluded, “And this is the reason I say that I am open to it.”
