Tesla CEO Elon Musk is clarifying his thoughts on Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency. In a new interview on the Third Row Tesla Podcast, Musk says he’s neither an advocate nor a critic of the emerging technology.
“I’m neither here nor there on Bitcoin… I thought [the Bitcoin whitepaper] was pretty clever.”
Musk says crypto supporters should acknowledge a hot button issue – that digital assets are used for illicit as well as legitimate purposes.
“This sort of gets the crypto people angry, but there are transactions that are not within the balance of the law. And there are, obviously, many laws in different countries. And, normally, cash is used for these transactions. But, in order for illegal transactions to occur, cash must also be used for legal transactions. You need an illegal to legal bridge. That’s where crypto comes in.”
Cash is becoming increasingly difficult to use, argues Musk, which is giving crypto an opening in the global economy. However, he does not think crypto assets will effectively replace cash and become the primary option for payments.
“Cash, these days, is used much rarer. It’s increasingly difficult to use cash. Some places, you can’t use cash at all. So, there’s a forcing function for transactions that are illegal, quasi-legal, and in some cases legal. But it’s got to have both legal and illegal…
So where I see crypto as, respectively, is a replacement for cash. But I do not see crypto being the primary database.”
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