Bitcoin could be the catalyst for a new financial order

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Speaking to Express.co.uk, co-founder of Bitcoin company Luno, Marcus Swanepoel, said: “Money is not going to be the same forever and ever. “I believe we happen to be sitting in the middle of one of these changes. “I don’t know if it is going to be Bitcoin or Ethereum - or if it is going to happen in a hundred years or one year. “But the future of money will involve some kind of global currency that is completely interoperable.

“One way or another the banks are going to get disrupted - whether it is through crypto or the sheer human capital that is now wanting to make financial services better. “Even if it is not crypto, there is a whole generation of people that are going to build better financial services.” The crypto expert argued the current banking system had not been designed for the digital age and would, therefore, become redundant in the future as a new system takes over. He said: “I am not anti-bank or anti-government.

Bitcoin is currently a highly volatile asset

“But if you think about the way the banking system was built, it was built for a non-digital age. “There is nothing wrong with the existing financial system - it is probably just quite inefficient for the world we live in today.” The banker turned crypto entrepreneur argued that typically “things do not change” by “existing systems optimising themselves”. He said: “It tends to be something that comes in that is completely left-field.”

'Money is not going to be the same for ever and ever'

Mr Swanepoel, who runs a global cryptocurrency business headquartered in London - with operations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, South Africa and Singapore - said cryptocurrency had the potential to enter into our everyday lives. He said: “We are not building a gambling or trading company. “What we are building, in the long, run is going to be useful for people in their everyday lives - they will be able to use it for transactions. “But the reality is, a lot of people at the moment are using it to speculate and invest and that means the Bitcoin price has quite a big influence on adoption.

“It is a temporary thing - but it is a reality of life.” Mr Swanepoel explained his company operated in a “pragmatic” way when it came to cryptocurrency, understanding the importance of working with the banks and pursuing regulation. He said: “We are very pro-regulation. “We are one of the more pragmatic players in the industry because of the more conservative way we built the company.

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