Jack Dorsey Bets on Bitcoin As ‘Strongest Candidate’ for Global Internet Currency
Jack Dorsey says Bitcoin is the strongest candidate he’s seen for an asset capable of becoming a global internet currency. The CEO of Twitter and Square is working toward making the world’s largest cryptocurrency a global, native internet currency that can reach more people around the world. Dorsey points to Bitcoin’s brand, resilience and lack of affiliation with any particular government, nation-state or corporation as key reasons why it can succeed as the currency of the internet.
In a new interview with Quartz, Dorsey says,
“I haven’t seen any other currency that would challenge it across the dimensions that I think are really important. First, I think it has an amazing brand. The other thing that I think makes it probably the strongest candidate is that the principles behind it are very pure. The creation of it was very pure, and focused on a public good, rather than any other particular agenda.
The fact that it’s meant to be deflationary, meant to incentivize savings instead of spending, I think is a net positive for the world and how we think about consuming. Because it is a scarce resource, it has a probability of always increasing in value, which makes you consider a lot more how you spend it.”
His mobile payment company Square, which launched its Square Crypto division to focus on driving merchant adoption of Bitcoin and crypto, announced its first hire on Wednesday. Steve Lee, a former director of Google, will join Square Crypto as a project manager. Lee, who notes on his LinkedIn that he’ll be “working to improve Bitcoin at Square,” worked for nearly a decade at Google on a range of initiatives from mobile maps and location to Google Glass at Google X. Lee aims to build up the Bitcoin ecosystem by helping businesses through education, training and technical support.
Dorsey tells TNW that Lee will lead the project, hiring a small team of five engineers and a designer to work on Bitcoin and improve the ecosystem.
Commenting on Facebook’s upcoming GlobalCoin, Dorsey says he hopes all private companies can see the value of having a “stateless currency” that everybody can access, regardless of whether or not someone is a user on Instagram or WhatsApp where a platform-specific currency would create new borders, new corporate controls and new digital nations.
“This is our one opportunity to align every community, and every country, around the world, which I think provides a lot of clarity, enables a lot more innovation, and most importantly creates a probability of much greater access for more people.”
Dorsey says that developers at Square can opt-in for payment in Bitcoin, other currency or cash.
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