Bitcoin is like a poetry, can bring a sea change in the world: Jack Dorsey

Dorsey has also hired Bitcoin developers for his payments company, Square.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has made absolutely no secret of his love for cyrptocurrency over the years, says Bitcoin for him is like poetry

Praising 'The Bitcoin' whitepaper that was published in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto (a name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or the group who developed bitcoin) that outlines what Bitcoin is and how it works, Dorsey said he sees ample opportunity for Bitcoin to bring about a sea change in the world.

The Bitcoin whitepaper is "one of the most seminal works of computer science in the last 20-30 years. Bitcoin is like poetry," he said during an Artificial Intelligence (AI) podcast with MIT research scientist Lex Fridman via The Daily Hodl.

"I think it was smart not to do it anonymous, not to do it as a real identity, but to do it as a pseudonym because I think it builds tangibility and a little bit of empathy that this was a human or a set of humans behind it. There's this natural identity that I can imagine," explained Dorsey.

Does Bitcoin has the potential to become the major currency of the world and redefine how money works?

"Definitely, but I think the bigger ramification is how it affects how society works. I think there are many positive ramifications outside of just money. Money is a foundational layer that enables so much more," Dorsey replied.

Twitter is also considering a feature that would allow users to tip one another - in Bitcoins.

The Information reported recently that the micro-blogging platform is working on implementing a new payment feature to let people send money to each other.

It is not yet clear whether the Twitter tipping feature would integrate with Dorsey's other company, Square, which is a financial services, merchant services aggregator, and mobile payment company based in San Francisco.

Facebook's cryptocurrency Facecoin: Why you should be sceptical

Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology.

Facebook is reportedly preparing to launch its own version of Bitcoin, for use in its messaging applications, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. Could this “Facecoin” be the long-awaited breakthrough by a global technology giant into the lucrative market for retail financial services? Or will it be yet another exaggerated “crypto” project, buying into the continuing excitement about decentralised peer-to-peer exchange but, in the end, not delivering very much? Time will tell, but my two decades of research into the economics of payments makes me sceptical.

We know little about Facebook’s plans. So far there is just one company statement about a new group set up to look into cryptocurrencies reported by Bloomberg: “Like many other companies, Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology. This new small team is exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share.”

Some investigative journalism from Bloomberg and the New York Times reveals a little more. Facecoin (and the similar “Gram” cryptocurrency being developed by the privacy focused messaging app Telegram) will apparently be a “stablecoin”. Rather than having a fixed amount of currency that fluctuates in price, depending on demand, Facecoin will have a fixed price and the amount of it in circulation will vary. So unlike Bitcoin it will not be a vehicle for speculation.

What will the fixed price be? Bloomberg reports it will be fixed against the dollar. The New York Times says that it will be against a combination of dollar, euro and yen. Who will use it? Facebook is apparently focusing on providing a technology solution for the large and lucrative remittance market for payments into India. Will transactions in Facecoin be anonymous like those in Bitcoin? No, they will be associated with Facebook accounts, so they won’t be an easy means to avoid laws and regulations.

(Article Source BS)

Reasons to be sceptical

While this is a fascinating development, some scepticism is in order. If there is one common feature to the many hundreds of crypto and blockchain finance projects announced over the past four years, it is exaggerated early claims. In one ongoing research project, I have found that of 103 projects announced since 2015 applying so-called blockchain technologies to financial services, all but a handful have quietly disappeared. None have yet been taken through to commercial-scale launch (although around half a dozen may achieve that by 2021).

Is there anything about Facebook’s plans to suggest a different outcome? The obvious parallel is with the Chinese payment solution WeChat Pay, globally the largest mobile and internet payment solution used by “900 million active users”. In Beijing and Shanghai “even beggars have QR codes” that allow passers by to scan and give them money using their smart phones.