Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey discussed the global application of BTC with Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation.
At the 2021 Bitcoin Conference in Miami, the author of this article interviewed Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on issues such as the global application of BTC, currency, and the future of social media. The following is the content of the interview.
Alex Gladstein: Hello Miami! Welcome, Jack Dorsey! There were 12,000 BTC enthusiasts at the scene.
Jack Dorsey: Hello!
Alex Gladstein: I think 20,000 people are watching the live broadcast. We are delighted to see more and more people paying attention to BTC. I want to start with an essential question that most people might ask: why would you be on the same stage with a human rights activist? What is the relationship between BTC and human rights? Isn't BTC just an investment product?
Jack Dorsey: I don't think so. For me, BTC changed everything. What attracts me most is the spirit, connotation, and environment in which it was born. These are scarce attributes and very precious qualities. I think that in life, there is nothing more critical than benefiting the whole world.
Alex Gladstein: We often hear in the community that BTC belongs to the public. BTC is open to everyone worldwide, and some people cannot trade, save, or establish contact with the world. As far as BTC belongs to the world, what is your opinion?
Jack Dorsey: This is the focus of my attention to doing my part in this regard. No matter what I can do, no matter what my company can do, let everyone use BTC. This is my goal for the rest of my life. If I leave Square or Twitter, I will engage in BTC-related work. If BTC needs more help than Square and Twitter, I will leave the company and switch to BTC. But I believe that both companies can play a role.
Alex Gladstein: Today's theme is to provide banking services for people who have no bank accounts. As you may all know, billions of people in the world are not banked, or they are not fully banked. However, the number of mobile phones is growing at an alarming rate. Even in Ethiopia and Sudan, 20%-25% of the population now owns a mobile phone, and this number will exceed 50% in the next five years. Therefore, our current situation is that new technologies are constantly emerging, and more people can use the Internet, regardless of nationality, race, or belief, can use the BTC network. So if you want to provide banking services to people without bank accounts and let more people use BTC, what do you think is the most critical condition?
Jack Dorsey: We don't need a bank anymore. There is still a lot of work to be done in BTC popularization and education to form their ideas. I also want to thank you. Thank you for dispelling many people's doubts and giving sufficient reasons to support the widespread use of BTC. We do not need financial institutions today. BTC is booming, the system is very stable, and its ownership belongs to the community. The community will continue to promote the development of BTC. The BTC consensus is fascinating. Over time, it can provide a wide range of banking services, which is a noble goal. BTC is rare and unique, so we are willing to devote everything to developing and protecting BTC.
Alex Gladstein: You personally and Jay-Z recently launched a new fund. You plan to donate 500 BTC to develop the BTC ecosystem in Africa and India. Can you talk about the vision of this fund and its plans for the next few years?
Jack Dorsey: In November 2019, I traveled to the African continent and went to Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Ghana. I only met with entrepreneurs in the local area and did not meet people from the government or the media. I found that for local entrepreneurs, the first issue is payment. The most exciting thing is that they are studying BTC. I have seen reports that Nigeria is considering banning BTC, and I have also seen the news that India is considering banning BTC. This reminds me of one thing: we can use BTC to help the development of all parts of the world. To achieve this, we need to find developers on the African continent and conduct BTC research based on their original work. This is very important. I discussed this with Jay-Z. Jay-Z loves BTC and is very devoted to what he loves. He is a believer in BTC. He also believes that if a unified currency is to be created for the world, the currency must develop around the world. We should all work hard to narrow the local development gap. Therefore, we are now looking for a suitable development model for BTC, a completely independent entity. I can't control or direct its development. Once we find a development model, we will hire a leader to make BTC donations.
Alex Gladstein: We continue to discuss this aspect. Nigeria is a country with a population of more than 200 million. The inflation rate is as high as 15%. In terms of financial technology and payments, the country lags behind the world. When you travel around the world and have been to different countries, you can understand how BTC impacts the world. People in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, or London may not be able to feel this? When people say that
has no social value, what facts are they neglected?
Jack Dorsey: I don't think these people can feel the impact of BTC. They never leave New York. If you can go to Nigeria for a day and look at the current situation of people's lives, the high inflation rate has led to the continuous devaluation of income. You are going to Ghana for a trip, where there are many immigrants from all over the African continent and see the same problems every day. The same goes for India.
Alex Gladstein: My suggestion is that these people should try to live in Sudanese pounds for six months before they can tell us that BTC is useless. I think they will have the opposite idea. Today, it is estimated that between 150 million and 200 million people have used BTC somehow, accounting for 2% to 2.5% of the world's population. By 2025, the number of people using BTC may reach 1 billion, and this goal will be reached by 2030. When so many people use BTC, a situation may arise. If you pay with fiat currency, the main chain fee will become relatively high. People in Nigeria or Sudan need to pay in small amounts, and the transfer amount may be US$5 or US$10. How to expand the capacity of BTC outside the main chain?
Jack Dorsey: There will be more and more BTC users. I support the BTC Lightning Network very much. BTC is a beautiful asset, but the Internet needs a native currency to support daily transactions. Everyone in the world can use it for daily transactions. So the only reason Square entered the BTC market was for this purpose. We are not involved in any other currencies or cryptocurrencies and focus on making BTC the native currency of the Internet.
Alex Gladstein: You announced that Square has a big project. Can you talk about your views on the non-custodial use of BTC?
Jack Dorsey: We are considering making a non-custodial hardware wallet. What we want to do is an entirely open-source wallet. All software and hardware designs are open source and will be published on GitHub. We hope to cooperate with the community for development. So we posted a post today to ask some questions about design principles. We don't want to compete with existing hardware wallets. We want to improve the wallet's functionality so that more than 100 million people with non-custodial solutions can become its users. We may achieve our goal soon. But we need to make sure to think about this issue in the right way and find the right people in the community to build the wallet.
Alex Gladstein: I think the non-custodial use of BTC is critical. Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of BTC, knew this very well. Satoshi Nakamoto set his birthday as April 5. On this day in 1933, the U.S. government banned private ownership of gold. So when Satoshi Nakamoto designed Bitcoin, he thought about how the U.S. government collects and confiscates gold from people and how it can build a system to prevent this from happening. So Satoshi Nakamoto chose 1973 as the year of his birthday when the American people could repurchase gold. Therefore, the non-custodial use of BTC is Satoshi Nakamoto's vision. So it's fascinating to see Square support this. I think many custodial service providers in the crypto circle will be unhappy.
Jack Dorsey: We need to promote more companies so that more people have non-custodial solutions.
Alex Gladstein: Before, you said that you only like BTC. Now that the proof-of-stake mechanism and other cryptocurrencies have attracted a lot of attention, what do you think are the advantages of BTC's proof-of-work mechanism and full-node operation mode compared with other consensus mechanisms?
Jack Dorsey: I want to emphasize again that the conditions for the birth of BTC fascinate me. I think BTC is a unique cryptocurrency, and no one else can match it. We want to create a native currency on the Internet and improve the status quo, so we are very interested in other cryptocurrencies. not interested.
Alex Gladstein: In essence, BTC control is in the hands of users. The user controls the BTC monetary policy. It is not a handful of people who control monetary policy. This is the real purpose of our choice of BTC. We chose BTC to create a system that replaces legal currency. In the legal currency system, the rules are determined by a small group of people. I attended a conference yesterday and met a man named Fodé Diop, Senegal, who told me a story from the late 1990s. At that time, he lived in a country that used CFA. CFA is the currency of the French colonial period, and officials in Paris, France, have a significant influence on the price of CFA. His father saved a lot of money to go to college, but the French decided to devalue the CFA overnight. As a result, he can no longer pursue his dreams. This is why Fodé Diop was so excited when he saw BTC later; he said, this is the channel for me to escape the fiat currency system. The essential difference between BTC and other cryptocurrencies is that the user controls the monetary policy. This will not change. The control of other cryptocurrencies may be in the hands of a small group of people, and users can only hope that this group of people can perform their duties.
Jack Dorsey: Once there is a corruption problem, this group of people will not perform their duties.
Alex Gladstein: People are always tempted to issue additional issuances to solve problems, but BTC is not affected by this situation.
When we talk about other digital currencies, I want to talk to you about central bank digital currencies. Around the world, people seem to be gradually getting rid of paper money and relying more and more on mobile phones for banking operations. This caused a lot of concerns about civil liberties. Even Christine Lagarde said that the digital euro could not achieve accurate, complete privacy. The Chinese government is actively promoting CBDC. This is a war against cash. In a world without paper money, what do you think about financial freedom and privacy?
Jack Dorsey: I think the CBDC launched by all central banks is meaningless. We have a better choice, and that is BTC. We can obtain privacy and freedom through BTC. If politics is more aware of privacy and freedom, society will develop in a better direction.
Alex Gladstein: Many people say that BTC users are criminals. What is your response to this? This view is similar to how people viewed encryption in the early 90s. The government does not want people to protect their privacy. Fortunately, the cypherpunk movement promoted the development of privacy communication tools such as Signal. However, when you talk to regulators or government officials, they will say that BTC is too risky and will harm people. How will you react?
Jack Dorsey: Their views feel like they are covering up other things. I haven't heard many such views from regulators. I think the officials said this only because they were concerned about the loss of power.
Alex Gladstein: We heard a lot of people talking about the energy use of BTC. Square and Ark published a paper together describing how BTC mining can incentivize the use of renewable energy. Mining may help unlock unused renewable energy around the world. Can you talk to me about why BTC mining is good for humanity and the planet?
Jack Dorsey: From an economic point of view, miners must ultimately be profitable. Access to cheap renewable energy can maximize profits. The reason is that simple. I am fully convinced that over time, BTC now indeed inspires people to use more renewable energy. People will also pay more attention to renewable energy sources to freely explore unused energy and provide value to billions of people around the world.
I think the development of BTC can bring benefits to the whole world. This is the incredible thing about it. Everyone in the world can benefit and get value from it. We must work hard to increase the utilization rate of BTC because BTC transactions can be carried out anywhere in the world, which is a beautiful tool. I will do my best to make sure that people all over the world can use BTC.
Alex Gladstein: BTC can serve everyone. This is a concept I want everyone here to understand. BTC will not discriminate against anyone; anyone can use BTC, no one can stop us from using BTC, BTC is open to everyone, and it has open-source code. As a human rights activist, I am grateful to companies such as Square to support BTC open source and support Non-custodial use, supporting Lightning Network. I am very grateful to Jack Dorsey for sharing his thoughts. We all agree that BTC is the way forward in the future.
Jack Dorsey: That's right! BTC is the only tool to create a better future.
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