Mark Zuckerberg bats for Bitcoin, says cryptocurrency putting power into people’s hands; is he missing the point though?

Keeping in tradition with other years, Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg has issued a mission statement just as the new year begins. Unlike before, he concentrates more on putting power back into people’s hands, other than his task to fix Facebook, in a note published on the popular social networking site Facebook on 4 January. Amusingly, what seems to have struck the readers most are his views on the cryptocurrencies, which have taken the entire world by storm lately. He talks about how virtual currencies have successfully managed to shift the power-balance from a centralized system to the hands of a common man.
“There are important counter-trends to this -- like encryption and cryptocurrency -- that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people's hands. But they come with the risk of being harder to control. I'm interested to go deeper and study the positive and negative aspects of these technologies, and how best to use them in our services,” Mark Zuckerberg writes on Facebook.
Despite the meteoric rise in the prices of popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, ethereum and others, market experts worldwide are not much enthused by the virtual currency. Banking industry leaders, governments and regulators across the world say that Not only are the private cryptocurrencies speculative, they are also bereft of any underlying value.
Cryptocurrency successfully married to social media
Of late, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit have been major gainers in terms of social traffic centered around the conversations about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Private cryptocurrencies have tapped into the social media ecosystem and have rewarded it with cryptocurrency capabilities. Social media platforms also earn crucial revenues from the cryptocurrency-related advertisements.
What the governments are worried about
Governments all across the world have largely been worried about the regulatory aspect of the cryptocurrencies.
India: The Reserve Bank of India is not much enthused by the idea of trading in cryptocurrency. The central bank has issued four warnings till date about the potential economic, financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks associated with dealing in such VCs. The income tax (I-T) department also issued notices to 4 lakh to 5 lakh high net-worth individuals (HNI) across the country who were trading on the exchanges just days after the taxman conducted surveys at nine such exchanges across the country. Market watchdog Sebi has also issued similar warnings last year. Finance Ministry on December 15 formed a new panel to frame response with respect to the Bitcoin issue. The government in April this year had constituted a committee comprising nine members including representatives of RBI, SBI, NITI Aayog and Department of Financial Services to examine the existing framework on digital or cryptocurrencies both in India and globally and recommend measures for dealing with threats arising out of such virtual currencies such as money laundering and others. The Centre had allotted a three-month time period to the panel for submitting this report. The panel had then said that Bitcoin (most popular cryptocurrency) is neither a currency nor a coin. It had further said that those dealing with cryptocurrencies in India should shut shop. The panel had suggested a law to declare Bitcoin illegal if the measures to curb it appeared ineffective.

South Korea: South Korea on December 13 banned its financial institutions from dealing in virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. The hyper-wired country has emerged as a hotbed for cryptocurrency trading, accounting for some 20 percent of global Bitcoin transactions — about 10 times its share of the world economy.
US: The US Securities and Exchange Commission sounded a warning Thursday about cryptocurrency risks, urging investors to “exercise caution” in dealing with units like Bitcoin. State and federal regulators may not be