Breaking down Bitcoin, CEO Mike Kayamori joins Bloomberg Markets Asia from Singapore.

The market for bitcoin has been on a roller coaster, plunging to as low as 29% on Monday (13th Nov), but before long the downtrend quickly fades away. While in the midst of all the tumult surrounding Segwit and hard fork, bitcoin recorded $12b dollars in yearly transaction. What’s your thoughts about bitcoin and its recent development?

As you mentioned before Bitcoin has a software upgrade and because of the nature of Bitcoin (that it is consensus driven), not everyone agrees on the “upgrade”. As it turned out, there wasn’t enough consensus on the upgrade, therefore the hard fork did not happen. If you look at the past history of Bitcoin, chances are you will be making money, if you are a long term holder.

What is hard fork and what is the difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash?

I look at Bitcoin in a way similar to a software, for example we have Windows 98, 2000, XP, etc. All these things related to technology innovate and improve. But because technological changes and advancements in Bitcoin require consensus, we end up having forks and splits. That gave us Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Unlimited, and now Bitcoin Cash. I look at Bitcoin as a software with different uses, such that there will be several use cases in each type of Bitcoin. Ideally, each type of Bitcoin will serve a different purpose, be it a store of value or for daily transactions.

Having said that, too many of them [types of Bitcoin] will confuse the user and the market, which might not be a good thing. If we look outside of Bitcoin, there could be another token such as Ethereum that can be embraced by everybody. In fact, there are already more than a thousand types of crypto tokens, but we are just at the beginning of all these technological advancements. Any of these tokens that bought and sold can be done at our exchange. Our business as an exchange is independent and we are regulated by the Japanese government. Mass adoption will happen over the coming years.

Tell us about the mixed messages coming out of China with regards to Bitcoin.

Japan was at the forefront when it comes to Bitcoin, but because of Mt. Gox happened right in the backyard of Japan, it fostered innovation and regulation in the country. Also because of that, we saw a boom in trading activities in China during that period. After Mt. Gox, Japan became the first country that regulates Bitcoin, so naturally a lot of countries are taking notice and follow Japan’s approach in Bitcoin. However, China took a different stance in cracking down on Bitcoin activities.

Tell us about the Bitcoin bubble.

People tell me Bitcoin is in a bubble now, and two years ago people told me the exact same thing. There is only 4.9m of Bitcoins to be mined, ever. When you consider this, and compare Bitcoin to that fiat (which can be printed), there is a finite amount of Bitcoins out there.