Brian Armstrong and the silence about Bitcoin

The CEO of Coinbase Brian Armstrong engaged in a series of tweets about the future of crypto and blockchain without ever mentioning Bitcoin. His followers have noticed this sort of reluctance in naming the queen of cryptocurrencies, assuming that Brian Armstrong may be sceptical about the future of BTC. 

On March 3rd, Armstrong analyzed the current situation in the financial markets arguing that falling stock markets and interest rate cuts could lead to the growth of cryptocurrencies. This is due to the fact that some measures such as quantitative easing and printing money can bring more funds to invest in cryptocurrencies. This is his conclusion:

“This could be the year where the mindset of institutional investors begins to shift, from crypto as a venture bet, to crypto as a reserve currency”. 

https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1234921916407746561?s=20

In reality, the cryptocurrency considered to be the store of value par excellence is Bitcoin. However, Armstrong never mentions it and the comments under his posts mention it. Some people go so far as to say that Changpeng CZ Zhao, the CEO of another equally important exchange, Binance, has no problem naming Bitcoin.

Does Brian Armstrong support Bitcoin? 

Was it just by chance? Not at all, since the next day Brian Armstrong engaged in another series of tweets comparing the development of cryptocurrencies and the internet, and again the word Bitcoin never appeared in his posts. 

In the long tweetstorm, he incorporates the contents of a chat with Ben Horowitz, co-founder of A16Z, a venture capital company dedicated to investments in technological developments. His considerations are that the cases of the development of internet and cryptocurrencies are similar. 

Early versions of the internet were slow, the pages static, there was a sense of insecurity and no one would ever put their credit card information online. A bit like what happens with cryptocurrencies, where the demand for scalable blockchains increases and the need for security and privacy are growing. 

At this point, Armstrong outlines what must be the most important developments for the cryptocurrency industry:

1. Scalability, because, argues Armstrong, there is a need for blockchains that guarantee a thousand transactions per second to enable mass adoption of cryptocurrencies;
2. Privacy. According to Armstrong, there is a strong need for privacy coins, just as in the age of the internet there was a need to replace the http with the safer https;
3. Decentralized identity, with dApps that immediately recognize the user;
4. Developer tools, to make app development easier.

However, says Armstrong, although there are similarities between the history of the internet and cryptocurrencies, 

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”.

His conclusion is that there is still much to be done to bring the blockchain and cryptocurrencies from 50 million to 5 billion users. The blockchain that will manage to put together the 4 points mentioned by him will have a great advantage. 

According to Armstrong, lmany teams are working to achieve this goal. He says:

“I am rooting for them all”.

https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1235315027193798660?s=20

Again, no mention of Bitcoin. Perhaps precisely because he didn’t want to show preference and just keep “rooting for them all”.