Balaji Srinivasan, CEO of 21 Inc., and board partner at Andreessen Horowitz, along with Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, which focuses on public policy issues for digital currency, discussed the evolution of Bitcoin and its long-term potential.

On Bitcoin’s revolutionary implications: “Bitcoin converts [a simple payment] into a decentralized system where the intermediary is no longer a number of banks – it’s the Bitcoin distributed network…it’s a completely different set of payment rails.”

On Bitcoin’s potential for long-term innovation: “The early Internet was meant to transfer web pages, not everything we do with it today. Because it became popular enough, it was retrofitted with all kinds of capabilities, and that’s going to happen with Bitcoin. It’s become pervasive enough that we will build on it rather than try to replace it.”

On the future adoption of Bitcoin: “Entrepreneurs [who adopt Bitcoin] now know that they can build with confidence, and they don’t have to be quite as brave as the early adopters. You’re going to see a lot more of them involved.”

