At Propelify, Speakers Debate Pros and Cons of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain – njtechweekly.com

At the PropelifyInnovation Festival held in Hoboken on October 3, panelists discussed the prosand cons of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, including their impactson the future of commerce and society.

The participants includedAli Hassan, cofounder and CEO of CrescentCrypto Asset Management (Jersey City) and Nick Adams, cofounder and managingpartner of New York-based investment firm DifferentialVentures. David Sorin, a partner at law firm McCarter & English (East Brunswick),was the moderator.

Hassan said that bitcoinand its underlying blockchain technology give people, rather than banks andgovernments, control of how money is used.

Banks and governmentshave control over what we can do with our money. he said. Bitcoin removesthat power from the entities that control the ledger, and gives it back to thepeople. Thats the true beauty and the only real use case today of blockchaintechnology. Its the disintermediationof banking.

Adams, however, disagreedwith the idea that the replacement of the nations monetary system withcryptocurrencies has any merit. He cautioned that greater acceptance of digitalcurrency still faces an uphill battle, particularly with government regulatorybodies.

We will see World War III before the U.S. fullyadopts cryptocurrency, he said.

As for blockchain, therehas been growing support for this technology because of its transparency,security and facilitation of investment in assets that only the wealthy could typicallyafford.

Hassan said that blockchainallows more people to invest in high-priced assets, such as big real estateprojects and expensive artworks, which were usually out of their financialreach. With blockchain, the technologydivides those assets into smaller pieces that are less costly to invest in. Thistechnology is beautiful and amazing. It can do things well beyond what we canimagine.

Sorin added that his firmis currently working with an Israeli company that uses a blockchaininfrastructure that enables investment in diamonds for those who would nototherwise be able to invest in this asset class.

While Adams likes someaspects of blockchain, he warned that the technology is not yet ready to beused in place of traditional ways of valuing assets. Theres going to be a lotof pain and regulation before we get there.

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At Propelify, Speakers Debate Pros and Cons of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain - njtechweekly.com