- Vitalik Buterin said at the Ethereal Summit that Ethereum and the blockchain technology in general will help nations worldwide to overcome the corona crisis.
- The blockchain can support the local population, especially in the area of real problem applications.
Ethereum and the blockchain technology can contribute to improving the daily life of the population in the financial sector as well as in other industries. At this year’s Ethereal Summit 2020 in New York, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin spoke about the possibilities of how blockchain can help to overcome the global crisis. This year’s event took place online due to the ongoing corona crisis and brought together well-known personalities of the crypto scene.
Global crisis reveals need for Ethereum
In his presentation, Buterin criticized the globally coordinated political activities in times of crisis. He emphasized that current developments reveal the need for a manipulation-proof alternative for the democratic control of all popular decisions:
I definitely think that there’s a role for blockchains — and Ethereum in particular — to play in being this kind of neutral global player role [for]these systems, currencies, and applications to interact. I think anything created and maintained by nation-states can’t play that role.
Cami Russo of The Defiant asked Buterin whether Ethereum could act as a currency worldwide to prevent censorship, abuse and fraud. In response, Buterin explained that the Corona crisis has encouraged the adaptation of cryptocurrencies, and ETH in particular, as people lose confidence in traditional financial actors such as central banks.
Buterin thinks that only about one third of the current crisis takes place in the financial sector and that many problems lie in the real world where cryptocurrencies and the blockchain can serve as problem solvers. According to Buterin, the current situation therefore offers the chance that Ethereum can now grow strongly by addressing solutions to real problems:
The cryptocurrency space… for the first decade or so, it was really focused on the financial aspects — censorship resistance of money… but here in 2020 we’re definitely seeing a lot of the same themes, but it’s somewhat less financial than before.
Buterin states that this year will probably see the emergence of more stablecoins and, above all, the tightening of regulations and laws worldwide. He predicts that governments worldwide will increasingly experiment with the blockchain and that a central bank supported digital currency will be the end product. Furthermore, there will be a market shakeout, whereby only those projects will survive that create real added value for industry and the population, which includes Ethereum.
Institutional interest in Ethereum is growing
New data from crypto-management company Grayscale show that interest in Ethereum is growing, especially among institutional investors. In the first quarter of 2020, Grayscale recorded a record investment of more than $110 million in the Grayscale Ethereum Trust. In 2018 and 2019, the Ethereum Trust was only able to collect $90 million.
The ETH price, however, has risen by 2 % within the last 24 hours to a price of around $208. Ethereum thus shows a positive development, but cannot currently keep up with the strong performance of Bitcoin.