The United States of America is practically in the midst of a new cold war: it is about the confrontation between the United States and China. Only unlike the arms race that took place in conflict with the USSR, now the battlefield has shifted to computer chips and the development of new technologies.
So who will win – Chinese tech companies or the US? In fact, the main winner could be cryptocurrency. This is exactly the assumption made by the creator of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin in an interview with Morgan Beller, the general partner of the venture capital firm NFX.
Note that Vitalik Buterin rarely comments on such topics. Usually he touches on the topics of cryptocurrencies and investments. For example, in August 2020, the developer revealed when he last purchased bitcoins. According to him, this has not happened since 2017.
The entrepreneur also told why he had to sell half of his own Bitcoin savings in 2013. It’s funny, but at that time he admitted that the value of BTC could collapse to zero.
In this regard, Vitalik’s comments on broader topics are of equal interest. In this case, he described how the conflict between the United States and China will help the spread of cryptocurrencies.
How will the trade war help the crypto market?
Recall that the Trump administration has argued that Chinese tech companies are a «Trojan horse» from the Chinese government. In this regard, ex-President Trump tried to ban the popular WeChat application, which is used by more than 1 billion people around the world for reasons of national security, as well as to ban the popular TikTok application, which is owned by the Chinese corporation ByteDance.
Before leaving office, Donald Trump introduced special tariffs for video cards supplied from China. Here’s what Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin thinks about it. The developer’s reply is provided by Decrypt .
It is certainly true that the intensity of the conflict – even if it has negative consequences for humanity as a whole – is beneficial to the cryptocurrency industry.
That is, one of the most popular people in the cryptocurrency niche is confident that any such clashes at global levels will stimulate the popularization of blockchain assets. Recall that the latter are decentralized, that is, users of the crypt are equal to each other, and no government can, for example, prohibit an individual to conduct the transaction he needs. If we are not talking about withdrawing funds from centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, of course.
Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum
In addition, Vitalik criticized Trump’s tactics in this matter. Here is a quote from him.
Basically, if your strategy for dealing with the “scary things” that bother you about a Chinese technology company is to fight China, then you will be very vulnerable to any non-Chinese technology company or other organization that tries to do the same.
And while the US leadership, through bans and new tariffs, has claimed to protect people from security threats and job losses, Buterin seems to imply that the centralized power of governments undermines all attempts to “protect” the population. Here is his line.
This is where cryptocurrencies come to the rescue, because decentralization is the only way to convince people that you really care about trying to protect them.
Indeed, the tool for storing value and transferring it without being tied to any country or government in this case seems to be the most obvious choice for citizens who want to interact with each other.
But how does it all work in real life? Buterin explained a logic puzzle in which three people are involved in a shootout. Person A is more experienced than B and B is better than C. Who is most likely to win? Answer: C. The point is that A and B are the biggest threat to each other, so C will most likely just avoid the bullet.
As you might have guessed, cryptocurrency may be in this very category C. It is not on one side, it is decentralized and censorship resistant, and its two main obstacles to adoption are oriented against each other. This is the point of view that Vitalik Buterin adheres to.
In other words, while China and the United States are actively competing, they will have no time for crypto, which means that the digital asset market, in theory, will continue to develop freely.
We believe that cryptocurrencies really can exceptionally benefit in situations of crisis, pandemic or other similar conditions. Blockchain assets give people freedom – both in terms of owning funds and working with them. In addition, the market is in great demand, as evidenced by the current phase of industry growth. So it remains to continue to observe what is happening and to make sure that Buterin’s version is clearly correct.
