Ripple CTO David Schwartz just made a passionate case for crypto and blockchain technology at the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas.
At a debate on whether blockchain will take over the traditional payments industry, Schwartz said companies that adopt new technologies like blockchain will thrive, and those that don’t will disappear.
“What will happen is the companies that will provide those high-speed, low-cost payments will get the business. And those that don’t, will have to adapt or die, just like in any technological revolution.”
According to Schwartz, three factors will place the blockchain on top: security, reliability and governance.
Security
“When you ask your bank for your balance, your bank tells you what your balance is. And you have to trust them. And if they screw up, you have to go to the bank to get them to fix it. Blockchain systems don’t work that way. Blockchain systems allow every participant to verify, personally, every system rule.”
Reliability
“It’s kind of a cheap shot, but the median blockchain has been more reliable this year than YouTube. I know – a cheap shot, right? YouTube had a two-hour outage a couple of days ago…
The last Bitcoin system outage was in 2013. It was due to a bug. They fixed the bug and haven’t had an outage in something like five years. The XRP ledger, the Ethereum ledger – these systems have never had outages. They’re very, very fundamentally reliable.”
Governance
“Blockchains are governed simply by having every participant enforce all the rules. So if you get a bunch of people together or a bunch of companies together, they can start a blockchain just by agreeing on a set of rules. And anyone who also agrees with those rules can use that blockchain. And those rules can include how you transfer funds and whatever the requirements of the systems are. And all that has to happen is if you don’t follow the rules, my system will ignore you because my system enforces the rules.”
You can check out the full debate here.
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