CEO of American hedge fund Citadel: Bitcoin will be replaced by Ethereum-based tokens

Billionaire and businessman Ken Griffin stated that “people’s enthusiasm is misplaced when it comes to cryptocurrencies”.

Billionaire Kenneth Griffin, CEO of the American hedge fund Citadel, believes that a currency on the Ethereum (ETH) network will replace Bitcoin (BTC) and become the dominant cryptocurrency. Citadel manages more than 40 billion U.S. dollars in capital-accounting for a quarter of the U.S. stock market trading volume.

At the DealBook summit hosted by the New York Times on November 10 this Wednesday, Griffin said that he expects that “in the next generation of cryptocurrencies, concepts based on Bitcoin will be replaced by concepts based on Ethereum.”

He added that Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies have the “benefit of higher transaction speed [and] lower cost per transaction.”

Ethereum is currently only slightly faster than Bitcoin, but when Eth2 is fully implemented, it will significantly increase transaction speed and reduce costs.

Griffin has long been a cryptocurrency skeptic, especially Bitcoin-he claims that “there are no commercial use cases.”

Although he pointed out that cryptocurrency and its underlying blockchain technology are “very interesting technology” and “a powerful way to maintain a decentralized ledger on a global scale,” he ultimately stated that “for most problems, this is really not The solution we need.”

“People are very concerned about a world full of new ideas and new creations,” he said. “I worry that this enthusiasm is a bit misplaced when it comes to cryptocurrency.”

During the summit, he claimed that “there are many issues that have not been solved by cryptocurrency”, including fraud risks, high costs and energy consumption.

“The cost of bitcoin management payments is very high,” he said. The current cost of each Bitcoin transaction is approximately $4.1. On popular networks such as MasterCard, Visa, and American Express, typical credit card transaction fees range from 1.4% to 3.5%. The recommended surcharge for debit cards is approximately 0.5%.

In terms of sustainability, Griffin claims that Bitcoin “has a greater impact on global warming than any form of payment we use around the world today.”

Bitcoin’s annual carbon footprint is approximately 90.48 tons of carbon dioxide. According to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, the carbon footprint of each Bitcoin transaction is equivalent to 2,008,657 VISA transactions.

On the other hand, Bitcoin mining also uses the lowest-cost form of energy, such as renewable energy and surplus electricity that would otherwise be wasted. It is also much more difficult to actually quantify the emissions of banks and financial institutions.

When asked if he was worried that he might have missed the encrypted train, he said: “I think the train is still at the station in a sense…I think it’s still in its early stages.”

Earlier this year, it was rumored that Citadel was behind Robinhood’s trading restrictions on gamstock stock. He denied any involvement in this matter during the summit, calling it a “bad comedy joke.”