Trump's Former Economic Advisor Joins the 'Blockchain Not Bitcoin' Brigade

One of President Trump’s former advisors has hopped on board the “blockchain not bitcoin” brigade.

Gary Cohn, who led the Trump Administration’s National Economic Council prior to his resignation last month, told CNBC that he believes in the promise of blockchain technology but is not sold on bitcoin.

The longtime investment banker, who served as president and chief operating officer of investment banking giant Goldman Sachs before joining the White House, said that he expects the world will eventually adopt a global cryptocurrency — but it won’t be bitcoin.

He argued that bitcoin is too complicated for the average person to understand and predicted that that the one-world cryptocurrency will not be secured by mining, a process that is energy-intensive and — rightly or wrongly — often criticized by environmental advocates.

Cohn said:

“I do think we will have a global cryptocurrency at some point where the world understands it and it’s not based on mining costs or cost of electricity or things like that.”

“It will be a more easily understood cryptocurrency,” he added. “It will probably have some blockchain technology behind it, but it will be much more easily understood how it’s created, how it moves and how people can use it.”

As CCN reported, Goldman Sachs recently confirmed that it will launch a bitcoin futures trading operation, a move that followed months of denials from spokespeople and company executives. Eventually, the bank intends to pursue regulatory approval to trade “physical bitcoin” as well, though it has not laid out a timeline for when this will occur.

When asked to comment on this, Kohn demurred.

“Look, they can do whatever they want. They can do whatever’s in their shareholders’ best interest,” said Cohn, who no longer owns any Goldman shares. “I’m not a big believer in bitcoin. I am a believer in blockchain technology.”