Up Close and Personal with Roger Ver: Current State and the Future of Cryptocurrency

By Kapil Gauhar

Entrepreneur Roger Ver has always been in the heated arguments since he stepped into the crypto world. This early investor and adopter of Bitcoin has recently caught up with BTC Wires’ Jatin Madhra to discuss cryptocurrency.

Find the full interview here:

Roger Keith Ver is an early investor in Bitcoin-related startups. He has been a prominent supporter of Bitcoin adoption and saw bitcoin as a means to promote economic freedom. He now promotes Bitcoin Cash, a hard fork of the cryptocurrency created with the intent to fix issues such as high fees and long transaction confirmation times. Currently, he is an investor and CEO of Bitcoin.com.

Following is the transcript of the interview;

Jatin Madhra: How did you enter the world of Bitcoin?

Roger Ver:

My interest in Bitcoin arose from the enthusiasm for science fiction movies, as a new technology that was challenging the whole system. It was quite fascinating from the word to go.

Jatin Madhra: As you are an early investor of Bitcoin, could you share what made you put your trust in the potential Bitcoin?

Roger Ver: 

I’ve done my education in both Computer Science and Economics. So, that was quite helpful too as I understood how money works, and my technical abilities made me understand the tech behind Bitcoin.

Jatin Madhra: In what ways, cryptocurrency paves the path for the lesser government control over individual keeping in mind the concept of national cryptocurrency like Petro.

Roger Ver:

In the current scenario, the control of people’s money lies in the hands of the government. In the case of current fiats, the politicians whom we select decide the amount of tax we pay and where we can spend that money with crypto into the picture. The control of the government will be a lot lesser as the decentralization gives power in the hands of people. If more and more people realise that, cryptocurrency will become our fiat.

Jatin Madhra: Do you think the government is involved with the Attacks on Bitcoin.com by Government?

Roger Ver:

It would be naive if I say that a certain section of the government is not involved with attacks on Bitcoin.com, because, with Bitcoin.com, I have certain powers which the government doesn’t like. Whether they are involved directly or indirectly with attacks on Bitcoin.com, I can’t confirm. But, it’s quite clear that the government won’t like power in the hands of individuals and society.

Jatin Madhra: Where do you see bitcoin’s role in inciting violence as often used or set by the government?

Roger Ver:

Cryptocurrencies might have been used in certain sections of the illegal markets for illegal activities, but it is nowhere near in comparison to the violence and wars created by the government around the world in hunger of power.

Jatin Madhra: What do you have to say about the hard fork trend in the crypto world, given BCH is itself a hard fork of BTC. So, is it for earning extra cash or refined technology?

Roger Ver:

The value or the use of bitcoin went out of trend as the scalability issue arose. The transaction fees on the Bitcoin network became so high that it became impractical to use today. With Bitcoin Cash, we are looking to create a currency of the future. It is fast, secure, and cost-negligible when compared to BTC. I would rather ask people to use it for themselves to decide.

Jatin Madhra: Is Bitcoin Cash better than other Altcoins or not?

Roger Ver:

Competition leads to better products, be it in case of hamburgers where McDonald’s, Burger King or many others who are competing against each other to offer customers with the best hamburger at lower prices. The same holds true for cryptocurrency as well. So, I wish everyone all the best, and I believe the more competitive the crypto space is, the better future money we will have.

Jatin Madhra: What are the benefits of increasing block size on BCH network?

Roger Ver:

All currencies work on a supply-demand basis. As the demand increases, the supply must be compensated equivalently. The Bitcoin Network refused to do that, and it resulted in a kind of disaster. You can see it for yourself, Bitcoin held 90% of the market before scalability issues arose. Since they reduced to increase the block size,the market share reduced to around 50%. With BCH Network, we have managed to juggle that supply-demand gap with enhanced block size. As the demand increases, the supply too must be increased equivalently to compensate for the market.

Jatin Madhra: Increasing the block size and not reaching the transaction goal. Would it impact a network?

Roger Ver:

The main goal of increasing the block size is to compensate for the demand, which BTC was not able to fulfil. The Bitcoin Core team actually made the transaction slower and expensive, which would certainly cause them great harm in future.

Jatin Madhra: What are your views on Bitcoin SV network and the community withdrawing its support from it?

Roger Ver:

I genuinely wish them good luck. But, we did have a conflict of interest over the order of things we wanted to execute on the BCH network. But, they don’t interest me anymore. Still, I wish them good luck with their endeavours.

Jatin Madhra: What do you have to say about the hashrate war? Don’t you think buying hashrate and announcing it publicly could have attracted hackers for 51% attack?

Roger Ver:

I think each hashrate on any network is a BOT. That is the fact, and I can assure you that any network whoever uses the hashing function needs to buy it from someone. As simple as that!

Jatin Madhra: What are your views on market crash in 2018? Were you worried that Bitcoin or Cryptocurrency would survive it?

Roger Ver:

To be honest, I don’t pay much hide to the price on market valuation. For me, the goal is long term to make cryptocurrency a daily medium of exchange and make it efficient to be used by everybody. Prices are relative. I bought BTC when it was valued a few dollars. So, whatever the current price is, I’m still good. So, the price has never been my area of focus. It has always been a utility.

Jatin Madhra: According to you, what is the best time to invest or not invest in cryptocurrency?

Roger Ver:

I really don’t know, but I think it depends on the investor. Whether you want to buy $1000 worth of crypto for a 10 days period, or you want to buy a $100 worth of crypto for a long-term. It totally depends on the investor.