Bitcoin is like everything else. For every friend it makes, it also seems to make an enemy. For every person that likes it and appreciates it, there is always someone out there condemning it and warning others against it.
To some, bitcoin represents massive potential. To others, it is a waste of time and effort, and should be avoided at all costs. Moguls such as Warren Buffett and various high-ranking business holders have shared their concern over the fluctuations in price the digital currency has exhibited and tell investors that bitcoin has no merit.
Other entities, however, feel differently. One such person is Oswald Gruebel, the former CEO of UBS and Credit Suisse. Gruebel believes heavily in the power and potential of bitcoin, and that along with gold, bitcoin is the only true long-term investment that’s worthy of any mass attention:
“The only investment that demonstrably keeps its value over a long period is gold, and in future perhaps also bitcoins… Gold and Bitcoins production is limited. Not so with money. Central banks can print money limitlessly and these days they are telling us that openly. It’s therefore no longer recoverable.”
His words come as a shock, considering the massive opposition bitcoin has faced from Switzerland in recent years, but for the most part, Gruebel doesn’t believe that banks will always hold the power they now possess:
“Capital requirements mean that in future, banks will no longer be in a position to take advantage of their position as market makers… That means that they’ll no longer be buying when rates sink, and no longer be selling when they rise. It simply costs too much in terms of capital… Therefore markets can tumble a lot faster than in the past…”
Do you all agree with Gruebel? Will the power of bitcoin soon overcome that of banks? Post your comments below.
Images from UBS and Creative Commons
Zen 
Milly Bitcoin 
cohagen 
Guest 
jdat747 
Nealson Idiotquist 
Ernie 
phil 
Luca Ballardini 
Steve 
I wonder how well banks will hold up after digital cryptocurrencies steal the 1-4% they make off of every retail transaction involving plastic cards, cards that were once denounced by men and women of limited vision as “never being fit to replace physical money”..
Bitcoin services also charge fees and people are not going to give up the opportunity to dispute charges in many cases. Bitcoin is not a replacement for credit cards.
irreversible or non disputable charges coupled with the fact that even a cold wallet can be easily hacked with elliptical curve and klepto k2 signature attack even if your wallet is in space kinda kills it.
The banks are source of all the problems. Every body knows it but never ever any body could do something about it. Bitcoin is the only way to solve the problem. The governments should allow accounting based on blockchain and tax the citizens based on trade on virtual currencies so the tax problem associated with bitcoin will also vanishes.
People are the source of all problems and those problems won’t go away just by running a blockchain.
Very true. If the blockchain rocks so hard how come none of the mt gox bitcoins have ever been found? Why are exchanges every day robbing clients without being caught and facing justice?
mercy and grace work best … when someone makes a mistake, we will all have more success if we learn to nurture them to behave better. justice and punishment hurts us all.
Drugs are bad m’kay?
when we encounter someone who is doing something that we think is bad, we as a community can either attempt to force that person to do better or we can take the time to understand what led that person to take that path. When we forcibly attempt to change behavior after the fact or punish the behavior, there is great cost to the community in this approach. Also, we will fail to address the situations that led that person astray.
Alternatively, we can determine exactly why that person made the decisions that they made and what unexpected tragedies occurred to cause problems. An investigation is easier if the person is not afraid of retribution. Then we can nurture our community members to make optimal decisions, and as well create structures to mitigate bad decisions. In this way, we can mitigate problems before they happen and this is better for the whole community. Attitudes of judgement and desires for revenge further damage the whole community and do little to prevent future calamities.
Wasted effort, best to let Darwinism have it’s way with fools.
you did make me laugh there @cohagen:disqus… let’s make sure the fools don’t take us all down with them though
You mean like in mike judges flic Idiocray?
You hear about the multiagency task force taking down josh Garza and dave parker of cryptocoin news? Darwinism for the win!
I appreciate that position and the inclination for something better, however, counter to all the best efforts of the most effective approaches, you’ll never be able to prevent all calamities. To borrow a quote; “Some just want to watch the world burn”.
Case in point; my good friend @cohagen:disqus. There are such people that stubbornly refuse to alter their ill-fated perspectives, be it out of pride or a masochistic tendency to keep the ashes burning.
Your brain cells vanished it seems.
Dear Nick, try researching next time. Dear Newsbtc, try fact-checking. Yes, both take some time and resources, but it helps for quality and maintaining a reputation. Switzerland, ie its government have consistently been NOT hostile against bitcoin. The central financial supervisory authority had issued a 30 page document in early 2014 already, basically saying “we are all good, please proceed” and in fact given bitcon pretty much currency status, as in “if it looks and smells like a currency, we think it just may be one” (yes, my tone). Try Google!
Some people involved with Bitcoin are promoting an agenda and not Bitcoin itself. Some think that if people use Bitcoin then those people will automatically agree with their political agenda. As a result they often misrepresent Bitcoin when things are not in line with that agenda. part of the agenda is a notion that Bitcoin will cause governments and financial institutions to collapse, that nation currencies will be replaced with Bitcoin, that war will ended because governments can no longer finance them by inflating the national currency, etc. These are the types that claim that governments and financial institutions are attacking Bitcoin because they see it as a threat. In fact most government officials and financial institutions know little or nothing about Bitcoin. They also claim the NY Bitclicense is a conspiracy by governments to collect personal information of citizens while others claim it is a conspiracy of financial institutions looking to shut down Bitcoin. In fact it mostly just a reaction from complaints of Bitcoin users over things like Mt. Gox.
if you had a monopoly on free money and make your living by lending that free money to people to get even more money back, and you can take their stuff when they can’t pay you back: would you be hostile to a threat to your business model?
That has nothing to do with Bitcoin because there are no loans on the blockchain. Loans with interest will still take place.
no loans on the blockchain? …not yet 😉
Oswald Gruebel is probably unaware of the fact, that, one day, there won’t be MORE bitcoins, but there still will be more Gold-Production. This is a fundamental difference. Gold EXISTS, Bitcoins DOES NOT, it’s just plain Imagination. Similar to Oswald Gruebel’s Ideas.
ernie is unaware that bitcoin does exist, maybe not in your extremely limited and small imagination, but i have a wallet full of bitcoin. if i can buy an xbox from mircosoft or book a flight and hotel with expedia or donate to wikipedia then it has value, producing more like printing paper or mining gold causes inflation meaning people holding gold and paper money will expect to see the value decrease. bitcoin value will be deflationary once every bitcoin is produced. im thinking economics isnt your fortey
I may have an extremely limited and small imagination, that probably because, I’m a rather realistic thinking person. But I fully agree, if I would have a full wallet of Bitcoins, probably bought @400 bucks each, or even much higher, I would buy XBoxes as well, and fly around, if it would be the only way to get rid of them, as long as anybody accept’s ’em for a real Value.
Sorry, it’s not my fault, I was not speculating, and I’ve lost no money on Bitcoin. I’m just watching the Scene for the past half of a decade, to see the Bubble grow and decline again. It’s still a bubble today, but it still contains nothing really, exept for hot Air.
In Addition to this, it CAN NOT work, the way it does. Whoever has has the most Money to invest in Mines, has the most chances of grabing the most Bitcoins out of the ‘System’. Everybody else is just USED to PAY, for the System, and the Traders. And there ist not even ONE WEEK, without someone leaving the Scene, taking some Millions out of the Pockets of those, hoping to ever make a Profit on Bitcoin.
Microsoft, Dell, among others, all write bad ‘Numbers’, and all are eager to sell their crab, to any price, at any currency. Still, they only accept Bitcoin as currency in the USA. Probably just to keep their profile, but sure not to make real Money.
I believe in God, because, if I see it printed onto ‘materialistic’ Dollars, in my Hand, even on my Bank_Account. Real Dollars, not just an algorithm-based ‘Joke’, changing it’s Value by Seconds.
Sorry, I don’t want to be critical, I just try to count and add proven facts…
You have a “wallet” and I use the term lightly full of nothing; just geek produced code that geeks try like hell to say is valuable but too the world at large is utter crap. Before you spout off corps and companies accept it as payment truly they don’t, they have a middle man (coinbase for example) that gives them fiat instantly for the consumer spent crypto.
Your utterly clueless on money economics dufus, Erinie has the two rarest of all assets…BRAINS & COMMON SENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can do all things you talk about (“buy an xbox from mircosoft or book a flight and hotel with expedia or donate to Wikipedia”) with good ole accepted everywhere by everyone fiat cash money.
Bitcoins kinda exist through the trust you have in it because there is no real worth in these bits the worth of one coin is depending on the market only.
The natural inflation-rate of Bitcoins makes it impossible to see it as a serious suitable replacement for Gold.
Natural inflation rate? There can only be a total number of 21,000,000 bitcoins in circulation and no more. Please do explain how this creates a “natural inflation-rate”? Now I may be wrong here, but wouldn’t this actually do the exact opposite. Being that inflation is the direct result of more money being created and placed into circulation, your logic is baffling to me.
Not to mention, it isn’t going to replace gold because gold-backed currency has already been replaced by paper (fiat) which isn’t backed by anything except for the promise of the ever-so-trustworthy government… Paper that continues to be printed and printed and printed with no audits and no oversight. That, my friend, is a formula with a “natural inflation-rate”.
Go read a book.
Oswald also believes in santa, the tooth fairy and the easter bunny.
I’ve met a lot of people who got caught up in the excitement when Bitcoin was at $1000. They had been watching it for years and finally bought at the absolute worst time. So, please, be that guy so I can sell some to you then. Or, if you are ready to stop pretending to be psychic, you could buy a few dollars worth at a time all year and not worry about the day to day price. If you really want to invest, look into the amazing developments going on in the space. It is absolutely exciting what can be done in a world where money and software are perfectly integrated. maidsafe, storej, etherium, NXT, Supernet, Ripple (govt. play). There are many others. Learn and profit.