My latest speech about cryptocurrencies in front of a group of students from Edinburgh and what I have learned on that day. - Education is the key!

Recently, I had the pleasure to give a speech about cryptocurrencies and blockchain to a delegation of business students from Edinburgh, that were exploring the city that I currently live in: Frankfurt am Main. Most of them had already job experience and were master students, some of them even PhD students. I experienced them as very kind and very knowledgeable in the field of finance and management.   

Interestingly, the vast majority was absolutely not clear about what blockchain is and that there is more than Bitcoin. Except for one student, which surprisingly even have read the White Paper of Satoshi Nakamoto, all of them didn’t understand the concept and purpose of blockchain. Fortunately, they all were eager enough to ask me and Prof. Dr. Sandner the right questions. Many of them were very critical regarding the security, the legal situation and the purpose of cryptocurrencies.    

Here are some example questions, that they have asked us:  

“Why do we think that the blockchain is more safe than a bank account, since losing the private key of your wallet will lead to a permanent loss of your money, whereas the bank will simply send you a new credit card?”  

- This is definitely a good question. The point is here, to make clear, that enjoying the benefits of the total freedom of value with decentralised currencies, gives you automatically the total responsibility of your account.   

“Don’t we think that cryptocurrencies encourage criminals due to the high anonymity?”   

- Unfortunately, the high anonymity is abused by criminals using cryptocurrencies. However, also with fiat currency, there is enough room for criminals to hide their actions. Putting the burden on cryptocurrencies is simply not fair.    

“What do we think about the concerns regarding the security of the blockchain, being hacked by the power of quantum computers, that might occur in the near future?”   

- I especially liked this question, even though giving a right answer on this is not possible at this point of time. The rise of quantum computers can be indeed a threat to the blockchain. However, there is already research and testing going on regard creating blockchains that can sustain the power of quantum computers. We believe that the blockchain technology will develop at the same pace as the overall technological development.  

  

Luckily, by the end of our lecture, we were able to present blockchain and cryptocurrencies in a way, that everyone was able to understand the fundamentals and the purpose of this technology. We had a lot of positive feedback and even the most critical students were extremely thankful for giving this lecture.    

So my take away is again: Education is the most important asset in any society!