Alibaba Founder Jack Ma Believes in Blockchain Technology but Declares Bitcoin a Bubble
Jack Ma, co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, publicly launched a new blockchain-based money transfer service under his company, Ant Financial and maintained his positive sentiments on blockchain technology. However, he continues to support his pessimistic stance on Bitcoin – referring to it as a bubble.
Blockchain-Powered Low-Fee Remittance Payments
Ant Financial, formerly known as Alipay is an affiliate of the Alibaba Group. The company is backed by the world’s biggest names and is eyeing the blockchain technology for a while, with this new service marking the first implementation after a long time of research.
The new remittance service is in collaboration with Standard Chartered Plc and GCash, which will enable Filipinos who work in China to send money back home to their loved ones in the Philippines.
In a bid to explain why he had to come up with this service, Jack Ma emphasized that financial institutions charges were way too high and were available to a lesser variety of people when it supposed to be the other way round.
“Traditional financial institutions serve 20 percent of people and make 80 percent of profits. New financial institutions should service 80 percent of people, and make 20 percent of profit,” said Ma.
Bitcoin a Bubble or Not?
Jack isn’t the only one who has a negative standpoint about Bitcoin, there have been many people/groups who have expressed the same opinion about the pioneer cryptocurrency.
One of them being Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics at New York University, referred to cryptocurrencies in general as the ‘mother of all bubbles.’ Jeremy Grantham of investment management firm GMO, in a letter to investors at the beginning of 2018 also shared a chart comparing Bitcoins’ rapid growth with other historical bubbles before he concluded Bitcoin would have the same fate.
In Jack’s words, “Blockchain technology could change our world more than people imagine, Bitcoin, however, could be a bubble.”
Whether is view on cryptocurrencies will come to pass or not isn’t dependent on what countless people think about the technology. If Bitcoin would be highly valuable, that’ll be determined by the demand of the virtual currency.
But despite the drastic drop in price, with Bitcoin making a new low for the year, people are still hopeful and awaiting the ‘come back’ of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Will more payment services embrace blockchain technology? Let us know your views in the comments section.
