Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and Twitter, recently commented on the potential of Bitcoin in a virtual interview for The Oslo Freedom Forum. During the digitally-hosted interview, Dorsey spoke about the attacks on Twitter, focusing on the ability of users to remain private. He offered:
“I appreciate the difference between pseudonymity and anonymity. Anonymity feels a lot more random, where pseudonymity is built identity and that is what we want to value and that is what we want to protect ultimately.”
Pseudonymity is one of Bitcoin’s key characteristics, whereby traders and investors are semi-known by their wallet addresses. However, the wallet-owners are not known and are untraceable. Owing to the transparent nature of blockchain and the technology on which Bitcoin is based, Bitcoin is a pseudonymous rather than anonymous.
Bitcoin: Built to provide a trusted system
Dorsey continued to compare the nature he hopes Twitter to hold to that of Bitcoin, saying:
“[We’re building] the right secure systems in our platforms so that we can have trust in an untrusted environment. There’s a lot of newer technologies that provide for this. The whole spirit of Bitcoin, for instance, is to provide a trusted system in a distrusted environment, which is the internet. And those technologies will provide us with new capabilities.”
Following the recent attack against several major parties on Twitter, Dorsey pointed out that he believes that security is not something that can be perfected and that it is “a constant push to be 10 steps ahead of your attackers.” However, he also believes that ownership is crucial and that users should be able to have central capabilities to their own accounts. Bitcoin, for example, is a primary example of this, with individuals having full access to their tokens with private keys and wallets. Talking about decentralised ownership, Dorsey suggested that the internet is still working against a central control, but it is getting there and Bitcoin represents the possibilities:
“You see this most fundamentally in the work of Bitcoin and blockchain and that’s what gives me hope and a lot of peace of mind to help these issues.”
Blockchain paving the way for online content
Dorsey continued to praise blockchain for its transparent and permanent nature. For content to thrive with authenticity, he explained:
“Blockchain and Bitcoin point to a future, and point to a world, where content exists forever, where it’s permanent, where it doesn’t go away, where it exists forever on every single node that’s connected to it.”