The billionaire CEO of the American hedge fund Citadel Kenneth Griffin thinks that a coin in Ethereum (ETH) the network will replace Bitcoin (BTC) as the best cryptocurrency dog. Citadel manages more than $ 40 billion of capital, a quarter of the trading volume in the US stock market.
During the DealBook this Wednesday, November 10 summit Presented by The New York Times, Griffith said that he anticipates that the "Bitcoin-based conception [will be] superseded by Ethereum-based conception in the next generation of cryptocurrencies. "
He added that Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies have "the benefits of higher transaction speeds. [and] lower cost per transaction ".
Ethereum is only slightly faster than Bitcoin today, but it will significantly increase transaction speeds and lower costs when Eth2 is fully implemented.
Griffin is a long-time crypto skeptic, especially of Bitcoin, for whom he claims there are "no business use cases."
Although he noted that crypto and its underlying blockchain technology is a "really cool technology" and "a powerful way to maintain a decentralized ledger around the world," he ultimately said that "for most problems, it really isn't the solution. what do we need. "
"People are very focused on a world of new ideas and new creation," he said, "I am concerned that some of this passion is misplaced when it comes to cryptocurrencies."
During the summit, he claimed that "there are a number of issues that have not been addressed by cryptocurrencies," including the risk of fraud, high costs, and wasted energy.
"Bitcoin is incredibly expensive to manage payments," he said. It currently costs about $ 4.1 per Bitcoin transaction. Typical credit card transaction Rates range from 1.4% to 3.5% on popular networks like Mastercard, Visa, and American Express. The recommended surcharge cost for debit cards it is around 0.5%.
In terms of sustainability, Griffith claimed that Bitcoin is "a bigger contributor to global warming than any form of payment we use around the world today put together."
Bitcoin's annual carbon footprint is around 90.48 tons of CO2. Each Bitcoin transaction has the carbon footprint equivalent to 2,008,657 VISA transactions, according to Bitcoin Energy Consumption. Index.
On the other hand, Bitcoin mining also uses the lowest cost forms of energy such as renewable energy and surplus energy that would otherwise go to waste. It is also significantly more difficult to actually quantify the amount of issues that banks and financial institutions are responsible for.
Related: Billionaire Ken Griffin criticizes cryptocurrencies as a 'jihadist call' against the dollar
When asked if he was concerned that he had already missed the crypto train, he said: โI think the train, in a sense, is still at the stationโฆ. I think it's still in the early innings. "
Earlier this year, there were rumors that Citadel was behind business limits set in Robinhood for Gamestock Stock. He denied any personal involvement in the saga during the summit, calling it a "bad comedy joke."
