Harvard University Economics Professor Ken Rogoff: Governments will do everything they can to prevent Bitcoin from going mainstream

Although it sounds unlikely, if fiat currencies are eventually abolished by various countries, people will surely slowly turn to Bitcoin. After all, everyone values ​​their economic freedom, even if they don’t want to admit it on the surface. However, Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University, believes that various authorities will "prevent Bitcoin from going mainstream." This seems to confirm what some people are most reluctant to believe - in the long run, holding Bitcoin is just a meaningless struggle.

Financial institutions and governments have long warned people about the risks of Bitcoin. It is difficult to regulate cryptocurrencies. In the world of cryptocurrencies, there is no third party to intervene if funds are lost or stolen. In addition, cryptocurrencies are very volatile because Bitcoin is not protected by any entity.

In the past few years, banks and other financial industry players have been eager to try Bitcoin. Unfortunately, they are not interested in Bitcoin itself, but its underlying technology, blockchain. At the same time, many countries have also stated that they will issue their own virtual currencies in the future, implying that this is an imitation of Bitcoin.

As a last resort, all countries in the world will try to restrict the use of Bitcoin. But in fact, it is much more difficult to achieve this goal than we think, because people have the right to do whatever they want. Therefore, although the Bitcoin world does not need so many centralized service providers from the beginning, the only potential victims after restricting Bitcoin are cryptocurrency companies.

Rogoff said:

New-age cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, are already amazing, if not infallible. But cryptocurrencies are volatile, and governments have all sorts of ways to restrict their use. For example, they could issue orders to banks and retail stores prohibiting them from accepting Bitcoin. It's not like this hasn't happened before. FDR made it illegal for U.S. citizens to own gold. I can imagine a future where the government says, 'We have to temporarily ban Bitcoin mining because it threatens the economic stability of this great country.'

Eventually, everyone will realize that financial institutions and governments are against Bitcoin precisely because of the economic freedom it provides. It is not in the interest of banks to provide economic freedom to the people. However, banning Bitcoin and its use cases will ultimately do more harm than good, and governments will realize this sooner or later.