The founder and CEO of $10 billion advisory firm Devere Group, Nigel Green, has revealed he believes bitcoin will replace gold as the go-to safe haven asset within a generation.
Speaking to broadcast MoneyFM, Green shared some of his thoughts on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in an interview first spotted by Bitcoin.com. Green explained why he believes BTC could potentially replace gold as a top safe haven asset.
During the interview, the CEO said he thinks bitcoin has “gradually become more accepted,” and that when we go back to basics “there’s always been a system of payments in the world,” as even if we go back to bartering “there’s always been some way of people keeping score.”
Currently, Green said, the governments are keeping score and not everyone is comfortable with that arrangement. A way of looking at cryptocurrencies, he said, is that “a computer is keeping score.” He added:
So that’s what we’ve seen over a number years and just gradually more and more acceptance from people. [Bitcoin] is similar to gold, as so much as gold is limited, and obviously young people are more willing to accept a digital currency than perhaps some older people.
Per the CEO, owning U.S. dollars or Venezuelan bolivars is the equivalent of owning promises from governments, and “what’s happened in recent times has been mass printing of money.” Various governments throughout the world responded to the coronavirus-induced economic crisis through stimulus that included quantitative easing. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, for example, is now above $7 trillion.
Green pointed out that “flooding the market with extra dollars” means the government is “devaluing money.” The advantage of bitcoin is the amount of BTC is limited, and no one can create more. When asked about his bitcoin prediction, Green said he believes the coronavirus fueled his forecast and technology in general.
He questioned whether we believe we’ll have Singapore dollars in our pocket, in the future, or whether we’ll have digital currencies. He added:
The next question is: ‘Is bitcoin accepted as part of that digital world?’ It has become more and more apparent that it is, as younger people are more familiar with [bitcoin] and they trust in that world than perhaps other people.
The CEO pointed out that there’s a strong prevalence of youth turning towards innovations like bitcoin, while the previous generation was more geared towards gold. He noted you can put cryptoassets on your phone, as opposed to “carrying some gold or storing gold.”
The discussion was prompted by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) collaborating with UK-based cryptocurrency market data provider CryptoCompare to launch two cryptocurrencies indices, for bitcoin and ether.
Featured image via Unsplash.
