While everyone, from tech giants to small enterprises, is appreciating cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, some experts still think cryptocurrency is “junk”. MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga recently expressed his dislike for crypto during the ‘New India Lecture’ at the Indian Consulate.
President of the American multinational financial service corporation stated that most of the illegal transactions within and on the dark web are done by the exchange of cryptocurrency. He also said that the platform lacks predictability and transparency hence shouldn’t be a preferred medium of exchange at all.
"I think cryptocurrency is junk. The idea of an anonymized currency produced by people who have to mine it, the value of which can fluctuate wildly - that to me is not the way that any medium of exchange deserves to be considered as a medium of exchange," said the CEO.
He then also went ahead and said, "Why civil society would like to put a snake in its backyard and think that somehow the snake will only bite my neighbour, I don't get it," talking about the anonymity of the identities of the people dealing with crypto like how Bitcoin was used by Russian agents to handle transactions in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.
In addition to the rant against cryptocurrency, Banga also attacked cash as a medium against credit cards being the CEO of MasterCard himself. He said "India is deeply impacted by terrorism as is this country. Do you really believe that the drugs that flow through from Afghanistan to Pakistan to India and corrupt the youth in Punjab today that the drugs in America's campuses come in exchange for a credit card payment? They come in exchange for cash and yet society buys into the logic that cash is free and electronic payments are expensive. Society needs to wake up."
His statements were not only extremely self-serving and promoting his own platform above everything else, the criticism was also on the wrong side of the moral and ethical argument. Though eradicating the means by which the payments are done might help, the problem isn’t the means, i.e. cash or cryptocurrency at all but the culprits initiating such activities themselves. Since a big part of such activities can involve anything, from automobiles to food or planes, banning or finding alternatives is not a feasible solution.
