If you do not know who John Oliver is, then you have not been watching much of TV or using the Internet much. The British-born host of the late night show Last Week Tonight has been one of the most iconic figures on air, addressing issues that generally concern all of us. Mr Oliver has been a strong advocate of liberal values and equal footing for everyone where investment, equal opportunities and even social mores have been concerned.
Every Monday you could go on YouTube and just go through John Oliver’s latest 20-minute segment in which he addresses a major issue. He did well with net neutrality, an issue that should have reverberated more across the United States, but was gently swept under the rug by a man with an ironically big mug, which in poor light, may pass for their head. This scalding remark aside, John Oliver has done a lot to try and improve things for everyone.
Mr Oliver decided to address a specific topic that is at the heart of Cryptonewest’s interest – cryptocurrencies. He started tentatively, blankly stating that “Technology, the thing that will make television so high-def that I will no longer be allowed to appear on it.”
He was inexorable in delivering one joke after another. Addressing cryptocurrencies, Mr Oliver said that this was a chunk of digital gold that pretty much combined “everything you don’t understand about money, with everything you don’t understand about computers.”
His remarks – jocose as they were, were nail-on-the head. Cryptocurrencies have been making headlines at a dazzling pace with no one to say that an end is in sight. However, Mr Oliver had another accurate and mocking explanation about cryptocurrencies values.
He likened them to the Beanie Babies, who only had value if they agreed to have value in between themselves.
Still, Mr Oliver went on to also talk blockchain and he was serious, explaining that this could lead to better measures in terms of security, efficiency and trust. He has a point. Blockchain is truly on the cusp of overhauling the whole banking industry as we know it.
Even central banks and regulators are now quite actively advocating for the adoption of the technology, mostly through bringing fintech companies into the fold, which puts banks under a lot of pressure to be part of this happy new family of tech savants who are promising to make half of the banking’s sector staff and services redundant.
Mr Oliver however remained overall sceptical about the future of these new assets. He cited Dogecoin – a cryptocurrency that was based on a meme and the only worth it had been able to accrue was that of the madness around the idea of having something of value that has started as a complete and utter joke. Still, people are buying those assets in the hopes of becoming richer.
Our Take on Cryptocurrencies
We believe in cryptocurrencies in principle. In other words, we are inclined to consider the plain fact that they may disappear over the next years, but then come back in another form.
In other words, money will change. They may be called crypto money, or just lose their physical form – as in cash, but we are convinced they will change. Even Mr Oliver must feel this. However, he is also sceptical about how people readily sacrifice FIAT currencies to invest into something they truly do not understand in full.
His warnings are also a half-expressed concern for the future of people who sacrifice their livelihoods to pursuit untold riches which may be the reason for financial ruin. No one who has been investing last-time in Bitcoin, for example, around the time when the cryptocurrency’s value jumped multi-fold, did so out of well-considered prescience.
Rather, people were piling on a fear not to miss on something potentially good while indebting themselves even further. It is an unpalatable prospect and one that is definitely reason enough for Mr Oliver to be a vociferous critic of the make believe chunks of gold, as he is inclined to perceive them.
Mr Oliver Takes Blockchain Platforms In His Crosshair
Mr Oliver also explained how blockchain platforms that make no sense actually contribute to the whole confusion of matters even further. He commented that Eos, a blockchain platform has been so damaging overall that it had raised a billion dollars without proving its efficiency in the slightest.
Mr Oliver of course did not call the platform outright, but he pointed to the facts such as they were. With so much money flying around and no regulation in sight, we should all be worried about the implications of entertaining such dangerous ideas as buying imaginary puff of gold.
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