Bitcoin or Big con? The pros & cons of Cryptocurrencies - Dr. Gitanjali Swamy, Sree Iyer discuss

In a lively conversation hosted by Dr. Subramanian Swamy in the VHS India Arth Gyan Ganga Saturday program, Dr. Gitanjali Swamy and Sree Iyer discuss the pros & cons of Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, COINBase, DogeCoin etc. as well as the foundational technology of Blockchain and where it can be applied. A must watch!
#Cryptocurrency #SubramanianSwamy #GitanjaliSwamy #SreeIyer
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[jaideepc]

Dr Geetanjali is phenomenal. A worthy daughter of an intellectual giant like Dr SuSwa.
What did the family have on the breakfast table, when young. Her sister is such s great foreign affairs journalist as well.
Dr Swamy has unfortunately burnt all his bridges with Modi, due to intemperate criticism & entirely avoidable loose utterings nay abuses for reasons best known to him.

However Modi should consider taking Dr GS on a high level government Commitee to formulate policy for expeditious & safe adoption of crypto currency.

Great admirer of Dr Iyer whose take on this was also most cogent.

Such a fantastic discussion this was. Priceless..!

[pulkit]

Such a good n informative discussion. Problem with Indians is that only 459 views and 4 comments on such brilliant minds . This should have atleast a million views

[rajanipurandare]

Dr Gitanjali is really telling it beautiful ly. Thank you.

[sriharshanamuduri]

Dear Sri Iyer garu, please have a session with Balaji Srinivasan who is well known in the blockchain world and some of his forecasts have come true.

[yajatghule]

Even a 10 year old can understand this and apply it so beautifully explained

[a.bhaskara]

Excellent discussion! Very helpful, thank you.

[lagadakshayr]

Where is Professor M Nalapatti?
Please invite him on your channel. He is master of international relations.

[rajanipurandare]

Amazingly explained. Thank you. Really wanted know about bit coins. Thank you

[ajinkyakamate]

Gitanjali Ji is correct with the pandit marriage and attendes example. But is wrong when she mentioned about pandit collusion referring to miner collusion.
As she mentioned the 100s of attendees in the marriage are in a way eye witnesses to the marriage, so if needed they can testify that the marriage took place. So in such cases it doesn't matter if the pandits collude with each other and lie about it.
Lets say the pandit and the pandit associan lie that the marriage didnt happen, but just because they lie doesn't deny the fact that the marrige took place and also there are 100s of witness that can prove the pandits wrong and prove that the pandit is lying.
We don't need a government or some government organization to keep the pandits in check, the marked keeps the pandits in check. A pandit who lies like that will not get further customer for marriage.

Same happens with bitcoin miners. It doesn't matter if the miners collude or lie or try to cheat, the verifying nodes or the market will quickly know that certain miner is cheating, and the block mined by that miner will not be approved and will not be attached to the blockchain. That block will have zero value as in the market people can check in the blockchain if certain block is valid/true or not, so after checking If i see that certain miner has cheated I wont buy from it, that miner wont get any money out of it.

And as making one block in the bitcoin blockchain requires huge energy, he won't be able to recoupe the cost for it. Miners in past have tried doing it, and everytime they have failed because the market quickly punishes them, as such bitcoins will not be valid and wil have 0rs value. So the miner who used huge amount of energy will have to bear the loss.
The incentive structure of bitcoin makes sure that bad actors like this are punished. This doesn't require any government regulations or authority to keep a check on it.

So because of that it doesn't matter if majority of bitcoin mining happens in china, as even if chinese gov tries to do anything and try to increase the bitcoin reward or fake any transactions or duplicate someones bitcoin. The blocks in which the chinese gov tries to do such thing will not be validated by the nodes and they will be rejected, and rejected blockes have no value to them. Only valid blocks who have follwed all the rules of the bitcoin blockchain will be validated and the market gives value to only such blocks.

Another way miners have tried to cheat is by creating a Hard Fork, So they have used core bitcoin protocol/software and made some major changes to that and created new crypto currency, for example, bitcoin cash, bitcoin satoshi vision, etc. So in these forks people have colluded and tried to cheat by changing bitcoin as per their wish and all these hard forks have failed miserably because the market didn't gave them any value, as people realized that these Hard forks are scam and useless. This happened without any government regulations or any government authority doing it.

Bitcoin Incentive structure is designed in such a way that back actors will be quickly punished by the market. Bitcoin doesn't need any government intervention. Just think about it, bitcoin blockchain is active from 2009 and is still running flawlessly till today without any central government authority or company taking care of it, why? Because its designed that way, because of it decentralized nature anyone in the world can download the blockchain to their PC and connect with other nodes and sync with each other. Governments can try to mess with it, try to collude with it, but they won't be able to do anything to it. Anything government does to stop it will make bitcoin more valuable.


In terms of scalability, as to bitcoin blockchain can carry out only few transactions per second and visa/mastercard/UPI can do lacs of transactions per second. Then for that we have scalability in terms of layers.
Example, lets take example of cash, Cash (any countries cash, INR, USD, EUR etc) is base layer or layer 1, same like bitcoin's blockchain its base layer or layer 1.
So pervioulsy If I had to pay someone, I had to physically visit that person and pay him, so that type of base, layer 1 transactions had limitations on it. Then came cheques as next layers, just submit it in bank and bank will deposit the money to the receivers account all over the country. Then came NEFT, IMPS, then came credit/debit visa mastercards, then came UPI, so our current transaction system is build in layers, one layer over another and with each layer the technology and the speed and the number of transactions that can be done increased.

Same with bitcoin, "The Lightning Network" is layer 2 of bitcoin, It works same as UPI, we either scan the QR code or enter the receipients Lightning Network Address and enter the amount and within seconds the bitcoins are send to that person, lightning network can carry out lacs of transactions per second same as visa/mastercard/UPI. Again lightning network works without any central authority or any government regulating it. It is also decentralized and permissionless like bitcoins base layer.

[chandrabhatt]

Brahmin analogy is phenomenal. So easy to grasp cryptocurrency a such complex terminology

[praseninamdar]

My concern is with the word “mining” as it is not a very environmentally friendly task..there seems to be high demand for processors on the street level when cryptos are in the news...maybe the RBI in India could adopt a milder form of digital currency which may expand to its neighbours and those who trade with her.
No rigid govt control but they can keep a watch!
Some people are hiring space and processing cryptos on their own accord

[surendrabarsode]

A few comments are in order. 1- Gitanjali is simply better than her father. Swamy should be justifiably proud of his daughter, particularly when he himself has such a high level of intellectual achievements!! It is heart warming to observe Swamy listening with full attention like a good school student while listening to Gitanjali. 2- A minor point- Not only in India many people do not have a bank accounts but this is also true of USA!! 3-Her analogy of an Indian marriage and a Pandit certifying marriage ceremony is an apt one (though it may upset a few sensitive persons and we have so many of them and many are just waiting to criticize on any small pretext.) 4- If we start paying for goods and services in cryptos but if we have to ascertain the price in rupees or dollars, then we can never get of fiat currency. Is this how it is envisaged? In which case, crypto is just like a modern techno equivalent of gold. Please comment.

[ManiK-ljqe]

Great discussion 🔥 thank you for simplyfing such a complicated topic.

[mishiboy]

I am not sure if all aspects are discussed. If any regulations need to apply, KYC is a must. In which case the anonymity of transaction which is the ONLY BIG USE of crypto currencies is point less.

We seem to have a tech and do not know what to do with it.

A big point missed is the discussion whether Bitcoin is a currency or is it an asset?

[prakashraghunathan]

Than you sir well explained topic thank you

[prasannakumar]

Very informative. Thanks Sree sir for explaining in lay man's terms.

[RawanaTiger]

Sri garu, please tell Dr. Swami to take some ayurvedic treatment for his memory cause I've noticed for atleast a couple of years now that he is forgetting words when in debate. Ofcourse he's getting old and I don't want India to suffer due to his memory. He's an asset of diamond quality, All you know he might be the next PM for his financial wisdom. Hopefully it's not alzimers. Tell him his well wisher is asking him to take care and we want him around for few more decades 🙏🙏🙏

[Pharaohofstcentury]

Any suggestions about alt coins with potential??

[Indian]

Don't relay on technology for money exchange.. when something is encrypted by someone.. the same someone can decrypt and destroy

[sudheeraggarwal]

Bitcoin is limited in number but it can be divided by any amount of fraction and transactions can be done.
So
It's equivalent to infinite quantity of coins