CryptoGlobe caught up with Roger Ver at the World Blockchain Forum, he told CryptoGlobe how he discovered Bitcoin and why he has since switched his focus to Bitcoin Cash. We spoke about some of the most pressing issues facing Bitcoin Cash such as the possibility of a 51% attack because of its low hashrate compared to Bitcoin (at press time it is 7% of Bitcoin’s).
Despite many analysts seeing Bitmain holding 1 Million BCH as a bearish sign, Roger views it as ‘Incredibly bullish’ and an endorsement from the biggest company in crypto. Roger also mentioned his vision for bitcoin.com and how he plans to promote Bitcoin Cash going forward.
CryptoGlobe:
How did you get into Bitcoin?
Roger Ver:
I heard about Bitcoin for the first time on a radio show called ‘Free talk live’, which is a libertarian-oriented radio program out of the US and they were talking about it in reference to the Silk Road. And I personally wasn’t interested in drugs at all myself but I thought, what the heck kind of money are they using to buy and sell these drugs on the internet. And so that’s why I googled Bitcoin started looking into it. And I realized that this is going to change everything because now there’s suddenly money that nobody can control and people can send and receive it with anyone. It’s beyond the control of any bank or government or anyone. So it’s a game changer for the entire world. And here we are today.
CG:
What do you think draws the average person to Bitcoin?
RV:
I think a lot of the early adopters are libertarian types who are opposed to government manipulating the money supply and controlling what people do with their own money. But more recently, I think you have people that just find it more convenient to use than things like Western Union or bank wire transfers for people that want to save money on Amazon by using Purse.io, for example, in the UK you can save like 20 or 30% on purchases from Amazon by using Bitcoin cash on Purse.io, so now lots of non-libertarian types are just getting involved because it’s more convenient than the other alternatives they have available to them their lives.
CG:
Do you think there is still a lot of value in Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash for the new investor? Do you have any tentative price predictions?
RV:
I think from an investor standpoint, you kind of have a second chance with Bitcoin cash, right because the ratio between BTC to BCH is like 11:1 at the moment and even if you’re more bullish on Bitcoin, getting more traction because it has the Bitcoin name and everybody thinks that it’s Bitcoin even though the factual characteristics that it has as money at this point are no longer the same ones that made Bitcoin popular to begin with, it’s not 11 times more likely to get more traction than Bitcoin cash maybe it’s two or three or even four times more like it’s 11 times more likely. So from an investor standpoint I think it makes sense to buy a lot more of Bitcoin cash and that’s exactly what im doing with my own position as well, I’m holding a lot of Bitcoin cash because I think it’s the cryptocurrency thats most likely to have the most traction around the world which means the biggest market cap and the highest price. How soon is the Bitcoin cash prize going to surpass the Bitcoin price, it will happen as soon as people realize that Bitcoin cash is more useful as cash then Bitcoin is and two years, three years maybe four somewhere in that ballpark I would guess.
CG:
What do you think the most important properties for Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash, store of value or medium of exchange?
RV:
The medium of exchange is what makes it useful as a store of value. And if it’s not useful as a medium of exchange, nobody can use it as a store of value. So if you look at the entire world, every single thing that someone is using as a store of value, they’re using it as a store value, because it has some additional use case. So the reason gold is used to store value, is because it has other uses, you can use it to make electronics or dentistry or it used to be used as money. That’s why people use it as a store value. You can use a house as a store of value, but the house has a secondary use, you can live in it right? It can protect you from elements if the house couldn’t do something other than being a store value it wouldn’t be a store of value. And so for Bitcoin versus Bitcoin Cash store of value versus medium of exchange, you’re arguing over two sides of the same coin but the medium of exchange side or the secondary use case has to come before the store values use case. In Bitcoin Cash’s case the secondary use case is being usable as a medium of exchange. If it doesn’t have that it won’t be used as a store of value. The Bitcoin camp is doing a really good job of undermining Bitcoins usefulness as a medium of exchange, if they succeed in destroying enough of Bitcoins usefulness as a medium of exchange, they’ll also succeed in destroying its usefulness as a store of value.
CG:
So Bitcoin Gold suffered another 51% attack.
RV:
Again?!
CG:
Yeah, again! Obviously, Bitcoin gold has a much smaller hash rate than Bitcoin cash and a different hashing algorithm. But do you find it a worry that Bitcoin cash has the same hashing algorithm and has 1/10th the hash rate of Bitcoin, and is that something you want to change?
RV:
No, I don’t think we need to change the hashing algorithm but of course you know more hash rate is better than less hash rate, I think it will come to a point in the future where Bitcoin cash more hash rate than Bitcoin. But of course, I’d like to see that happen right now rather than a year from now.
CG:
Bitmain have been in the news recently with their IPO. And one of the things that came out was that they had 1 million Bitcoin cash that’s pretty big deal.
RV:
Yes, it’s a big deal!
CG:
There’s a lot of ways you can look at that, one of which is they are a whale that could suppress the price if they go public and they’re forced sell Bitcoin Cash. Or do you see it as a bullish sign because they are locking up supply?
RV:
It’s incredibly bullish. This is the most successful company in the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem and the fact that they chose Bitcoin cash as the cryptocurrency of choice is an incredibly bullish sign so it’s fantastic and when they have their IPO, they’re not going to need to sell any of their coins. If anything, they will have more money and they can buy more Bitcoin cash. So it’s an incredibly incredibly incredibly bullish sign for Bitcoin cash and it’s worth pointing out that the CEO of Bitmain was the first person in the entire world to translate the original Bitcoin white paper from English into Chinese and so thanks to Jihan the CEO Bitmain he’s the one who spread Bitcoin to China just like I was actually the one with some help to translate the Bitcoin white paper and the Bitcoin.org website all into Japanese and I brought Bitcoin to Japan, so we have Jihan who brought Bitcoin to China and myself who brought Bitcoin to Japan and to a large extent the rest of the world both of us are saying Bitcoin cash is the version of Bitcoin that we fell in love with, and it’s the version of Bitcoin that we think has the ability to change the world for the better, so both of us are devoting our time and effort and resources to promoting Bitcoin cash, because a digital currency can improve the lives of everybody on the planet, a digital store value, not so much.
CG:
bitcoin.com a massive site, one of the biggest news sites and influences to new investors and newcomers with a top domain name. There has been some conflict where bitcoin.com has promoted Bitcoin cash wallets as bitcoin wallets and people have been losing money and also labelling Bitcoin as Bitcoin Core. Do you think there is a responsibility on bitcoin.com to make it clearer for newcomers the difference between Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin?
RV:
Of course, we want to be as clear as we possibly can with the differences between Bitcoin cash and Bitcoin. And there were a couple of places on the site where, and a lot of people have to understand that there’s like there’s about 100 people full time if bitcoin.com now I don’t personally proofread every single thing that goes on the site and so there was a place or two where people referred to Bitcoin cash as just Bitcoin and then Bitcoin as Bitcoin Core. As soon as I was aware of that we fixed it so of course, we have a responsibility to disseminate accurate information and that’s our goal every day.
CG:
What’s next bitcoin.com and for you in the industry?
RV:
Sure there’s a couple of things coming for bitcoin.com. One is integrating privacy features so you basically make it difficult for people to do blockchain analytics on bitcoin.com wallet users. So we have a lot more privacy with your Bitcoin cash transactions. Another major thing we have is where you’ll be able to spend Bitcoin cash in just about every single major merchant in the entire United States like Walgreens, Walmart, Safeway, Home Depot, all these major merchants in the United States and you’ll probably wind up being able to get a 1% discount when you do it and that will be available in the bitcoin.com wallet only on Bitcoin cash not on Bitcoin core.
CG:
Do you have an ETA for this?
RV:
I’m hoping within this year, is the goal.
