The Rise Conference speakers share their opinion on the prospects of Bitcoin.
This Friday BTC China CEO Bobby Lee and OKCoin, Inc. Head of International Jack Liu took to the stage at the Rise Conference in Hong Kong to discuss future directions of Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin can mean different things to different people. For traders that can mean that Bitcoin is a speculative tool, but as Bitcoin becomes more mainstream that can mean transfers, that doesn’t necessarily mean Bitcoin itself but the Blockchain ledger it runs off,” Lee explained to the crowd at the conference.
“Bitcoin has come a long way in 6 years, but it will take another 6 years until it truly enters the mainstream,” he stated while speaking about the prospects of the digital currency. “Email didn’t take off because the post office closed, and hence Bitcoin doesn’t need a failure of banks to succeed in the future.”
Jack Liu added that transfer transactions are where Bitcoin and the Blockchain are now taking off.
“Bitcoin, and the Blockchain used for transactions will disrupt existing transfer services such as Swift and Visa. Products that potentially hide the use of Bitcoin in the background, but uses the technology, while presented as a system that is quick, and even free, makes the offering far more appealing.”
Liu stated that with the Blockchain being embraced by financial institutions, Governments will definitely follow with their own utilization of the Blockchain for distributed records management.
“If Bitcoin isn’t useful people won’t use it, it’s moot, if Bitcoin is useful and people embrace it, Government, with regulations and laws will follow,” Lee said meaning that regulation will happen eventually.
Concerning the Internet of Things, Lee shared his opinion that he saw a future where IoT connected devices at home could potentially embrace Bitcoin for micropayments, such as something as simple as removing ads from a video streaming service, through to even communications with light globes when it comes to bill payments and more.
Both agreed that interest had picked up due to both the Greek financial crisis and the volatility in Chinese stocks, there was still plenty of room for increased growth.
“More than anything what Bitcoin needs is more education,” Liu told the audience, “more people need to learn about it.”
In a recent interview with Bloomberg’s Rishaad Salamat on “Trending Business”, Lee maintained that Bitcoin is a viable digital currency. He stated that people all over the world are still using Bitcoin as a form of payment, regardless of its negative reputation and price volatility.
Besides, with the start of increased regulation such as what is being seen in the US, he believes that the digital currency can be able to gain legitimacy. He reiterated that Bitcoin is not a company and that the brand is promoted by the entire network or industry, which makes it an acceptable form of payment and store of value worldwide.
Zhanna has a background working for an American multinational food and beverage company as well as at a number of translation agencies serving similar top multinational corporations. She enjoys discovering new cultures as well as learning new languages. She is also a lover of all things fabric and floral ,especially if they are design-related. Zhanna is a graduate of Belarusian State Economic University with a major in Intercultural Business Communications.
