The also founder of Mercado Libre only values Bitcoin as a form of saving. He believes that the energy consumption of mining is excessive, but some research studies refute this fact.
Marcos Galperin, Founder and CEO of Mercado Libre, thinks that “Bitcoin is better than gold itself as a store of value.” Through Twitter, the businessman said that the pioneering cryptocurrency “will not replace legal tender fiat currencies.” He believes that processing its transfers requires high energy consumption but that “quantum computing could change that.” However, recalling what recently happened at the US Capitol, he raised his doubts.
That was the response that the richest man in Argentina gave to a user who asked him about the future of cryptocurrencies. On previous occasions, the 49-year-old businessman has already given his opinion on the creation of Satoshi Nakamoto. In October 2020, he had spoken similarly in a dialogue with PayPal CEO Dan Schulman. “Cryptocurrencies are an excellent substitute for gold,” Galperin said at the time.
What the CEO of Mercado Libre Thinks of Bitcoin
The Argentine executive told Schulman that the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining makes it difficult to obtain state financing. He said that “we are in a world with global warming and many energy problems.” To this, he added that it is necessary to “invest in clean and renewable energy.” For that reason, he does not believe that “governments want to spend a lot of resources on mining a digital currency.”
Despite what Galperin argued, Cambridge University researchers refuted his arguments in a study that they published in September. There they indicated that 76% of Bitcoin miners use renewable sources as part of their energy mix.
Galperin also criticized the speed at which Bitcoin and the ecosystem around it develop. On September 27th, a Twitter user told him that it is “an emerging technology.” Also, he explained to him that it is in its early days, just like when the Internet emerged. On that occasion, the Argentine businessman replied that Bitcoin was already “five years old.” Furthermore, he commented that the pioneering cryptocurrency “has an endless childhood.”
Expressing his disagreement, Spanish economist José Antonio Bravo explained that “the Internet was born in 1969 but there was no architecture available to the public until 1995.” Furthermore, comparing the creation of the WWW (World Wide Web) with the infancy of Bitcoin, he said that the main cryptocurrency “is quite advanced.”
To this, the same Twitter user adds that few people realize the possibilities of Bitcoin. He believes that the best opportunities are in that gap between the present and the future. He also thinks that it is relevant to provide extreme security and reliability, rather than do things quickly, to serve all humanity. Galperin is aware of what is happening in the money digitization and payment platform industry. His company Mercado Libre, which operates in several Latin American countries, is responsible for the MercadoPago service, a virtual wallet. He was also one of the founders of Libra, Facebook’s cryptocurrency, but abandoned this development.
By Alexander Salazar
