Bitcoin has limits to being world reserve currency, but Cardano can make it: Charles Hoskinson

• In a recent interview, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said Bitcoin is a world currency that is challenged by its centralization, and high energy consumption, among other issues.
• He thinks there are possibilities for ADA to be at the center of “de-dollarization,” but the process will take time.

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Bitcoin (BTC) has been praised for many potentialities, including providing freedom, hedging against inflation, and becoming a world reserve currency. However, Cardano (ADA) founder and IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson thinks some weaknesses keep the crypto king from attaining the last attribute. 

In a recent interview on the YouTube channel Crypto Jebb, Charles discussed “dystopian government systems, blockchain solutions for the former, and leadership principles to succeed in crypto.” He questioned Bitcoin’s ability to become a world reserve currency, saying its increasing energy consumption was breeding centralization – contrary to core blockchain ethos. He opines that there is no reason for a cryptocurrency to use an energy-intensive process when better alternatives exist.

Cardano a better world reserve currency than Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm takes up considerably more power than a proof-of-stake (PoS) network. Some researchers believe that the energy requirement for the latter is 99.99 percent lower than the former. Such reasons, in addition to world goals of cutting energy consumption and going green, are why Ethereum is looking to move to PoS through The Merge. And while Bitcoin mining has been said to have become greener in recent times, its power hunger is still a point of concern for many.

Hoskinson does not also support the claim of deriving scarcity from a high cost of production. Rather, he sees scarcity as the product of an underlying asset’s monetary policy and its utility.

If you produce paintings and one you have to paint by hand while the other you can do with the machine and they both look identical, and the demand is the same for both, you are just spending a thousand times more effort to do one versus the other.

According to the developer, a suitable digital standard requires smart contracts, metadata standards, and high throughput systems with millions of transactions per second. Bitcoin bears certain limits in this, he says, but it certainly has the potential to “evolve.”

De-dollarization by cryptocurrencies

Here, he says it’s “not impossible” for cryptocurrencies like his creation (Cardano) to be the world reserve currency. But whichever digital asset takes up that mantle, the crypto billionaire has it that “de-dollarization” is inevitable. 

It’s just going to come down to what the nation-states feel they need.

The reason for de-dollarization is America’s rising national debt, which has people feeling alternative monetary standards. The current US national debt stands at $30 trillion, according to USDebtClock.org. This value is predicted to approach $89 trillion by 2029, which would considerably slow down economic growth in the country.

But even then, the crypto billionaire does not expect such an event to happen overnight.

It won’t be like a light switch, where suddenly we are off the dollar, it will be more like a glider.