Brock Pierce: We must stop blockchain infighting

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The constant infighting between blockchain projects is misguided and is only derailing the entire industry. While we may have different approaches towards how to solve some of the challenges facing the world today, we all want to make the world a better place.

This is according to crypto personality Brock Pierce. Pierce spoke to our own Becky Liggero Fontana during the Malta AI and Blockchain Summit, sharing his thoughts on several issues including Tether’s woes, a company he is closely associated with.

Pierce compared the ‘my chain is better than your chain’ rhetoric to religious fundamentalism, where every religion strives to prove its superiority. However, this is misguided, he believes.

“What I believe is, if any of us is successful in changing the world and making it a better place, we all win. And so we should be supporting each other even if we have disagreements about our approaches.”

Pierce urged the blockchain industry to remember that even after existing for a decade, we are still a small nascent industry relative to the things we are attempting to change.

The Block.One investor and advisor believes that industries like gambling, adult entertainment and cannabis have been the biggest avenues of growth for blockchain. Historically, these are the industries that always adopt new technology first.

“The fringe industries are always having to innovate. They are the ones pushing the boundaries, pushing the limits of what’s possible, because of the challenges they face.”

One of the companies Pierce is involved in is Tether, having been one of its founders. Tether has been caught in never-ending controversy, from its involvement in BTC price manipulation to the close links to Bitfinex crypto exchange. Pierce believes that while Tether has made some mistakes, he says most of the information provided by media outlets is greatly exaggerated.

“The vast majority of it is FUD.[…] In terms of manipulating the price, I’ve not seen anything throughout all this that proves or even suggests there is any reality there. It’s mostly been competitive exchanges paying people to create fake news.” he stated.

However, he conceded to some of the errors made by Tether, stating, “Tether’s clearly made some mistakes, which we’ve all seen here. Bitfinex should not have borrowed money from Tether when their money got seized. And if they were going to do that, it should have been fully transparent, especially in light of all the accusations.”

Editor’s note: The inaccurate reference to Brock Pierce having “co-founded” Block.One has been corrected.