Coinbase’s CTO, Balaji Srinivasan, has recently made some waves by stating that cryptocurrency is entering the tech mainstream. This comes as multiple large technology-centered companies are warming to both cryptocurrencies and the blockchain.

Blockchain and crypto efforts becoming the norm among technology firms

Srinivasan, who is a prominent venture capital investor in addition to Coinbase’s chief technological officer, tweeted these comments. He noted that blockchain and cryptocurrency efforts are now quickly becoming the norm among Silicon Valley companies.

”Sundar Pichai & Sergey Brin’s sons are both mining crypto; Facebook is doing blockchain; Square open sourced some nice cold storage code; Microsoft, Amazon, Google Cloud all have blockchain efforts; crypto is entering the tech mainstream,” Srinivasan tweeted.

This observation comes despite the general bear market trend experienced during most of 2018. However, large companies do not necessarily factor in the price of cryptocurrency in their decision to adopt it.

Rather, increased awareness of cryptocurrency and the blockchain sector is surely contributing factors to companies’ decision to embrace them.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s son understands Ethereum better than paper money

Moreover, Srinivasan’s comment reference a story of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s son that recently made the rounds. According to Pichai, his son supposedly understands ”ethereum better than how paper money works.”

Pichai also revealed an amusing tidbit regarding his son’s crypto-savviness at the recent New York Times DealBook conference.

”Last week I was at dinner with my son, and I was talking about something about bitcoin and my son clarified what I was talking about was ethereum, which is slightly different,” Pichai recounted.

Furthermore, Pichai noted that he had to ”talk to his son about the banking system,” something he did not understand. On the other hand, however, the notion of cryptocurrency seemed to be easier for Pichai’s son to grasp.

Open-source projects gain ground

Srinivasan also referenced Square’s recent decision to open-source its code for processing cold storage funds. This comes as Ethereum became the fifth largest growing open-source project in the world last month. Moreover, this has Ethereum trailing very well-known open source projects like Microsoft Azure.

It remains to be seen whether Srinivasan’s prediction that cryptocurrency is now entering the tech mainstream will pan out. However, the past year’s increased awareness of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain certainly provides a solid groundwork for this.

Also, the numerous large technology companies – e.g., Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft – actively exploring blockchain lends credence to Srinivasan’s comments.

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