Up-close & Personal: Simon Cocking at BITConME, Dubai Blockchain Summit 2018

By Vinay Nair

In conversation with Simon Cocking at BITConME, 2018 in Dubai. The conversation covered talks about a comparison between Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, respectively. Here’s how the conversation went:

What do you think is the maturity for the Blockchain ecosystem as a whole?

If you remember, Ethereum did its fund raising in 2014, while Bitcoin is 10 years old today. Compared to that, Ethereum is in a super immature place. Even in the last month we’ve had two things around Ethereum with the ruling that is not security. There is also this new thing about processing transaction that questions if it can compete with EOS. These are only examples that show how young and immature Ethereum is. In addition to that, Vitalik Buterin just sent a tweet out about a month ago saying that he’s thinking of joining Google. Although he’s only 22 years old, it’s a very immature thing to do. Such things can destabilise the level of belief in the platform because people are gonna think that the lead developer is gonna go. It exemplifies that the technology is still so young and immature that some of these key structural foundational issues are still being resolved. Plus, things like sharing, etc. only add to the issue. So, comparatively Bitcoin did an amazing job, dealing with their set of similar issues and surviving for 10 years and a lot of fears that people had about Bitcoin, they have demonstrated that it’s not valid because it’s still going and it survived things. So it can be safe to conclude that Bitcoin is maturing but Ethereum is super young.

What is the future for Bitcoin?

Obviously we know the more optimistic predictions which are Bitcoin reaching 200 million. But I don’t think we are reaching there anytime soon. However, I think that as an alternative to fiat, as a decentralised currency, I think that Bitcoin having survived for 10 years in the world is a robust, stable place to put investment. The volatility still goes up and down but overall it shows that it can hold value for longer than what fiat can.

Do you think Ethereum can dominate the same way Bitcoin did?

With Bitcoin the plus point was that it was the first cryptocurrency. Those ten years of struggle and being worth $50 and $100 and paying for two piece of a 10k bitcoin. Bitcoin has gone through all of that and I don’t say that it will not go down even a little bit. But when Bitcoin went on a ride last year it went 3000, 4000, 5000 to city prices. Even now when it has fallen to 5000 its still above what was previously its highest ever mark a year ago. So basically if we look at it holistically, Bitcoin has done a lot more growing up than Ethereum and those extra 6 years in the world are making a lot of difference. There a lot many improvements in the Ethereum blockchain than in the Bitcoin blockchain, but sometime’s being a first mover can give you a great head start. So that way, Ethereum is on a journey of its own and it could be more volatile than Bitcoin will be.

What will be the perfect coin in the future?

Today there are so many alt coins in the markets. We have coins being used by sportspersons to remodel the sports industry, we have pop musicians using them, it’s even a thing in healthcare sector for usage by doctors and patients. So an answer to your question could be that in the future there will be different coins for different purposes. So I think we’re moving towards even more types of coins that have utility.

Vinay Nair

Mr. Nair, made his first ever exit in bitcoins, selling a patent and understands money for its intrinsic value. He is quite vocal about the ability of blockchain technology.

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