Bitcoin’s Future in Question
The news story of the day yesterday may have been that several international banks were teaming up to join a project created by UBS Group AG (UBS) to form a new digital currency that will (like other forms of cryptocurrency) clear and settle through block-chain technology. Big names like Barclays (BCS) , Credit Suisse (CS) , HSBC Holdings (HSBC) and others have joined the effort. UBS thinks that can kick-start this thing in a limited way toward the second half of 2018. That’s interesting.
The new coin, known as the “Utility Settlement Coin” will — if developed as planned — allow financial firms to pay for stocks and bonds without waiting for traditional money transfers to be completed. We all knew that somebody would notice that Bitcoin had become a threat to the way business was done, and either try to muscle their own way into the space, or muscle existing cryptocurrencies out. The questions in my mind, at this point, are plenty. For one, when do the planet’s largest central banks get involved? Those controlling money supply in reserve currencies have much power to lose if they do not defend themselves. My guess is that when they feel that they need to, defend themselves they will.
Does that mean some kind of cooperation with the likes of what we see developing here, or does it mean the elimination of?
It is no secret that blockchain technology is thought of as safer than systems currently in place. How disruptive will the central banks allow this technological shift to be? Heck, I don’t know. I do know that I am glad that I am long Nvidia (NVDA) . You may or may not have listened when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in the earnings call earlier in August that the cryptocurrency boom was sustainable. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has been the recent competition in this space. These are two chip makers who are currently the leading miners in this field.
The dominance of the semiconductors as a group is going nowhere, as long as chips are needed to mine blockchain. Then we can talk about artificial intelligence, machine learning, video games, autonomous driving, and every other currently pertinent technology business line under development.
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