Financial Historian Recommends Integration Of Bitcoin Into US Financial System
Famed financial historian Niall Ferguson has suggested the incoming Biden administration should ‘integrate Bitcoin into the US financial system.’
The former Harvard and Oxford University professor wrote a lengthy article about the rise of Bitcoin and how he sees its role in the future.
The famed Glaswegian academic said the US government should scrap plans to create its own CBDC and move towards a Bitcoin standard.
China has won the mobile payments race, as it’s two leading payment processors Alipay and Wechat handle more than double that of VISA and Mastercard. And with China seemingly way out in front with the CBDC, Niall Ferguson believes the US should take full advantage of the Bitcoin infrastructure.
‘Rather than seeking to create a Chinese-style digital dollar, Joe Biden’s nascent administration should recognize the benefits of integrating Bitcoin into the U.S. financial system,’ said Ferguson.
Ferguson also elaborated on the way Bitcoin can help the US authorities and its law-abiding citizens. The financial historian cited Bitcoin’s pseudonymous feature and indelible record in helping authorities crack down on many past ill-gotten gains.
We Are Living Through a Monetary Revolution
Niall Ferguson says we were ‘living through a monetary revolution,’ which is impossible to comprehend because it is so multifaceted.
The Bloomberg columnist said the main winner in this revolution is and will be Bitcoin, and the revolution had gained pace because of the Internet and the pandemic.
Ferguson cited the performance of Bitcoin against gold and the US dollar this year as proof of its emergence of a serious monetary tool.
The dollar is ‘down 4% since Jan. 1. Gold, by contrast, is up 15% in dollar terms. But the dollar price of a bitcoin has risen 139% year-to-date,’ said the famed financial historian.
Niall Ferguson also cited big name investors Paul Tudor Jones, Stan Druckenmiller and Bill Miller as vindication for Bitcoin’s emergence.
And Ferguson took aim at Doctor Doom, Nouriel Roubini’s seeming about-turn on Bitcoin. The New York University economist has shifted from calling Bitcoin ‘the biggest bubble in human history’ and how the Bitcoin price ‘would crash to zero.’
Roubini has since said ‘Bitcoin is maybe a partial store of value, because … it cannot be so easily debased because there is at least an algorithm that decides how much the supply of bitcoin raises over time.’
In his true Scottish wit, Ferguson retaliated, ‘If I were as fond of hyperbole as [Roubini] is, I would call this the biggest conversion since St. Paul.’
Time To Integrate Bitcoin Into The US Financial System
Financial historian Niall Ferguson believes the Biden administration should bypass its own CBDC and make use of the Bitcoin infrastructure.
Bitcoin is the most secure network, one that is indelible, run by a decentralized protocol that cannot be manipulated.
Although that will go against the idea of any US government adopting Bitcoin any time soon, Ferguson is a highly respected academic, and the US government does need to act, quickly.
The US is so far behind China with digital payments and once China rolls out its CBDC, no matter how manipulated the currency is, if it’s cheap, fast and secure, China’s trading partners will use it.
So the US has to act quickly. It could adopt Facebook’s Libra Coin, but it would be so much more innovative if they followed Neil Ferguson’s advice and integrated Bitcoin into the financial system.
We wait with bated breath.
Author: Pablo Clarke
A Bitcoiner since 2017 and a Bitcoin Maximalist since 2018, Tommy is our main writer and editor at Bitcoin Maximalist. Other than researching and writing about Bitcoin, Tommy loves spending time with his family and supporting his beloved Leeds United.
