Bitcoin vs Blockchain vs Cryptocurrency + bankers' hypocrisy?
I'm starting to notice that the name "Bitcoin" is being conflated a lot with "cryptocurrency" or "blockchain", but it's vital to be clear that they are really not the same thing. I think it's a good idea to pay more attention to wording, especially when involving bankers and government figures.
I just read a post on cointelegraph: Goldman Sachs Will Start Bank Money ‘Stampede’ Into Bitcoin: Ritholtz CEO talking about Goldman Sachs planning to get into [Bitcoin?] in Q3, 2018, but the actual quote said "Crypto currency". Very different meanings.
This article from CNBC (thanks to jrcornel for the link) also talks about it in terms of the hypocrisy, quoting Bart Stephens saying:
"While Jamie Dimon was making those comments, I was an invited speaker at JP Morgan's offices in San Francisco to give a talk with other fund managers and clients of JP Morgan who are really curious about cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology".
But while he goes on to say there's "a lot of hypocrisy going on with Jamie Dimon", Stephens is essentially making the same implication, that they are one and the same. But calling "Bitcoin" a fraud has a very different meaning in that context. It very literally means Dimon & JP Morgan are interested in the technologies, but are rejecting the Bitcoin version of it.
I got caught up in the hype like everyone else, fixating on the sensational "fraud" headline, and I hadn't actually watched any of the videos to hear his actual words, so I clicked on some of the related links. The reports all repeatedly conflated "cryptocurrency" and "bitcoin", and it was only when I watched the video from the above link that I found out that the first thing he does is very clearly separate Bitcoin from Blockchain technology. He then gave an explanation of what currencies are and how they are linked to government control. Whether you like it or not, he's not wrong about that. If you doubt that, try refusing to pay your taxes, or parking fines, in whatever currency your government demands, and see what happens if you refuse.
UBS Switzerland made the same point here: Crypto is Doomed to Low Demand... Unless You Pay Taxes With It.
The last thing I want to do is dampen the enthusiasm for these technologies, because I genuinely believe they do have real world-changing potential, but we need to be realistic about how that will work in the real world. Especially with increasingly militarised police forces that will turn up at your door and beat, taser, drag you off to prison, even shoot you if you refuse to comply with the rules of society. Taxes, parking fines, and the rest, are not paid with money backed by gold, they are backed by state violence, and this is really the point he was making.
The widespread responses within this space were highly emotive and accused him of being scared of change, and all kinds of other things, but I don't think that's the reality. I think he just lives in the real world. That's clearly indicated by the fact that he IS making the distinction between Bitcoin as an almost messianic brand, and the Blockchain technology underneath it.
But even if you're only interested in how Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies and your investments will be affected, the reason it's so important to be clear on the wording of comments from Dimon, Goldman Sachs, and others like them, is because it really has a very different meaning if they say they are getting into "crypto" but it gets reported as "Bitcoin", or if they are publicly criticising one while actively researching the other. The cynical response has been that it was just market manipulation — which I definitely don't discount as a possibility, and that's something worth bearing in mind — but even being more self-interested about it, what it really indicates is that the banks ARE pursuing these technologies, but they are also actively criticising the decentralised versions that are not controlled by governments. If you choose to make that a war between the banks and the revolution, you're basically taking your Bitcoins to a drone fight ( to paraphrase Jim Jeffries).
It's really important not to be naive about it when someone like Dimon says that governments will eventually shut it down, or that it will be forced underground. At the very least, it's probably wise to factor it in to your long term plans when buying and trading, and anticipating prices.