Trump Vs Clinton: Bitcoin Illiteracy in 2016 Presidential Election

U.S. presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump remain clueless about the latest technological innovations, such as: artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and one of the biggest inventions ever, Bitcoin. These innovations are the very technologies currently transforming human civilization. 

Also Read: Blockchain Will Transform the Agriculture Industry

However, alarmingly, the two major candidates neglect to mention specific programs and initiatives designed to minimize the negative consequences and to enhance the opportunities that these phenomenal changes bring.

Technology Is Transforming the World

Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Bitcoin, and its blockchain technology are becoming omnipresent. They offer previously unimaginable new business solutions and change the way we do things.

The changes these innovations trigger will be so profound that almost all societal institutions will have to undergo reengineering to survive.

Take the economy, for instance. None of the candidates has mentioned or referred to the fact that Bitcoin and its blockchain are severely disrupting the country’s economy, especially the financial industry.

Specifically, the advent of Bitcoin’s technology has revealed how obsolete the banking system and fiat money are. Indeed, they are not only unfit to support the new economy, but they are a hindrance.

A Financial Revolution

As a result, experts forecast that few financial institutions will survive in the new economy. In effect, according to a McKinsey report, there is “a new market structure emerging over the next three to five years.”

As the World Economic Forum reports, 80 percent of banks will use blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) by 2017. This fact underlines that “New financial services infrastructure built on DLT will redraw processes and call into question orthodoxies that are foundational to today’s business models.”

Accordingly, banks and other financial institutions are feverishly trying to adopt the blockchain to survive. Specifically, big banks are testing Bitcoin’s technology. This reality underscores both the fear and hope financial institutions feel about the technology.

“Even as fintech, Bitcoin and blockchain startups threaten to dismantle Wall Street’s grip on financial services, established players also intend to capitalize on technological innovation to make their products and services cheaper and faster — and could potentially do so  quickly enough to ensure their future in what is likely to be a radically changed industry,” explains Forbes.

However, Clinton and Trump’s policies on financial regulation fail to even address what banks are saying about blockchain.

Clinton’s and Trump’s Technological Cluelessness

The effects and pervasive impact of these all-encompassing technological innovations are enormous. They are changing the economy and disrupting society as a whole.

Innovations trigger change. Always, change brings risks as well as opportunities that can be amazing and invigorating.

So, for example, should political leaders start integrating this into their financial policies? Should leaders start addressing the societal effects caused by robots taking jobs from humans? Should we tax the wealth that robots create in order to support the unemployed? What about establishing a universal basic income?

Unfortunately, the two candidates aspiring to lead the most technologically advanced country in the world seem to be mostly unaware of the tech revolution. They are even less aware of this revolution’s far-reaching effects, and the need to address questions like the ones outlined above.

Granted, Clinton’s Initiative on Technology & Innovation, mentions the word “blockchain” in that “We must position American innovators to lead the world in the next generation of technology revolutions — from autonomous vehicles to machine learning to public service blockchain applications — and we must defend universal access to the global, digital marketplace of ideas.”

On the other hand, Donald Trump has not yet issued any documented policy on technology.

America’s Future in the Age of Bitcoin

Beyond Clinton’s “initiative,” the presidential candidates don’t seem very tech-savvy. As Newsweek recently lamented, “Over the next four-year presidential term, a swarm of fantastic new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, blockchain, personal genomics and drones, will profoundly alter society, business and geopolitics in ways we have never seen. And our two major-party presidential candidates do not have a clue.”

Only a few weeks remain before the presidential election. It is obvious that the winning candidate will need to be guided by advisors knowledgeable about the Age of Cryptocurrency. Ensuring such guidance will give the new president a better chance of promoting competition, economic growth, and reducing inequality.

Who do you think is more aware of the Age of Cryptocurrency, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? Let us know in the comments below!

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