Former Goldman Sachs president and free trade advocate Gary Cohn, who recently resigned as White House’s chief economic advisor, openly stated his opinions about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
In an interview with CNBC’s Bob Pisani, Cohn predicted that there will be a global cryptocurrency in the near future, but it will not be Bitcoin. Instead, it will be something that is “more easily understood” than the pioneer digital currency.
“I do think we will have a global cryptocurrency at some point…[however], it will be a more easily understood cryptocurrency that will probably have some blockchain technology behind it, but it will be much more easily understood how it’s created and how it moves and how people can use it.”
Cohn also expressed similar views as Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates, who recently claimed that he believes in blockchain technology, but not Bitcoin per se.
“I’m not a big believer in bitcoin,” Cohn said. “I am a believer in blockchain technology.”
Cohn also clarified that the ideal cryptocurrency will not consume insanely high levels of power and electricity as it will not be “based on mining costs and costs of electricity and things like that,” a constraint that Bitcoin currently faces due to its complicated Proof-of-Work procedures. Last October, it was estimated that Bitcoin transactions consumed up to 56 mln kWh of electricity per day, which translates to about $6.7 million in fees.
Response to Goldman Sachs
When asked for his thoughts about Goldman Sachs’ decision to open a Bitcoin futures trading desk, Cohn remained neutral, clarifying that he does not own any Goldman shares at the moment.
“Look, they can do whatever they want. They can do whatever’s in their shareholders’ best interest.”
Gary Cohn became the President and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Goldman Sachs back in 2006, where he carried the firm through the financial crisis in 2008. In 2017, he left Goldman to join the Trump Administration, where he took up the director role on the National Economic Council. However, two months ago, Cohn decided to resign after Trump announced he would impose stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
Cohn revealed his post-White House plans in an interview with Bloomberg, saying that he is still considering a few options, but the more probable one is a digital bank.
“I do have an idea for a company…it would be an interesting concept playing on the knowledge I know from the banking world, in running a regulated bank, but in a digitized world.”
