Jeffrey Wernick, an independent angel investor who previously invested in Uber and Airbnb, is also a large advocate of Bitcoin. Wernick believes that Bitcoin has true value to add to society, including the potential to solve the biggest problems plaguing our fiat financial system.

According to an interview with Business Insider, Wernick acquired Bitcoin in 2009. He explained in the interview that his fascination went beyond the ability to profit from the digital asset.

Wernick went on to explain that, when the US dollar’s link to gold and silver was terminated in 1971, he thought that it would cause a debasement of the US currency which would lead to high inflation of the US dollar. The angel investor, therefore, became very interested in a strong currency after the event.

He noted that the US had become a welfare state that ran on big deficits which debased the money further, causing a major shift in the relationship between the citizens and the government. He commented that instead of gaining the consent of the people for their actions “the government can do a lot of things without the consent of the people.” Wernick mentioned in the interview that the Government’s current approach is “I’m going to borrow money and I’m going to run a monetary policy, that will mean don’t ever worry about, you ever thinking that you’ll ever have to pay this debt off, it’s all a game anyway.” 

His initial interest in cryptocurrencies was therefore not one driven by economics and profit; rather, he truly believed cryptocurrencies could transform the existing relationship between the government and its citizens.

Wernick went on to criticize Milton Friedman’s support of independent central banks and attributed a lot of the problems with today’s financial and economic system to central banks.

“So I think ultimately, Central banking is what’s enabled Governments to grow as much as they have because they enable governments to spend with absolutely no discipline involved,” said Wernick.

Wernick mentioned later in the interview that cryptocurrencies solve several issues with the current fiat system.

“I think first is: Who issues it? OK, it’s decentralized. So now, nobody knows who Satoshi is, so essentially there’s no author,” said Wernick.

Wernick followed up with the fact that Bitcoin has a protocol with incentives for people who produce it. Those who produce Bitcoin, produce the token because of the incentives and mechanisms that exist within Bitcoin’s original infrastructure.

While Wernick raised the issue of concentration of power in the Bitcoin blockchain, he noted that it still has other advantages compared to the existing fiat system. These include having an inbuilt system that can avoid the double spending problem and removes the issue of counterfeiting.

Bitcoin is “a people’s currency, it’s defined by the people, and it’s defined by rules and a protocol that people trust,” said Wernick. “And I think in a world where people don’t trust anything anymore, that it’s good to have protocols that people trust that they control themselves, that are not controlled by third parties.”

The post Early Uber and Airbnb Investor: ‘Bitcoin is a People’s Currency’ appeared first on UNHASHED.

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