Former PayPal CTO’s position on cryptocurrency: still a developing story

Max Levchin, former chief technology officer in PayPal and one of its founders, who is now heading Affirm and trying to deliver transparent pricing for consumers in deals, has expressed his views on fintech to Bloomberg. He was focusing on counter-frauds during his time at PayPal, so it’s specifically interesting what he thinks on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. He called it a “developing story”.

“Every time somebody pitches me really cool, new cryptocurrency-based company, the first test I apply – I say “well, can this be done without Bitcoin, without Ethereum?” In 9 out of 10 times the answer is “yeaah, it’s really… kind of unnecessary to bring into it.”

Having said that, the promise of cryptocurrency – and especially the distributed ledger, the idea of… fully distributed verifiable trust is really powerful, and I believe we converge on concept on companies and fundamental improvements to our society through the usage of the blockchain, I’m just not sure exactly what they are yet,” Mr. Levchin explains.

Affirm CEO’s tactics about assessing the startups can prove useful for investors who always want to separate bubbles from decent projects. He did not, however, called Bitcoin a fraud like Jamie Dimon or other conservatives we have head so far. Mr. Levchin clearly implies that it’s better to take a wait-and-see approach if you are not sure about cryptocurrency credibility, but he does not tell that digital currency has no future.