Steven Lubka is the Managing Director and Head of Private Clients and Family Offices at Swan Bitcoin. During Bitcoin 2023 expo in Miami, Michelle Makori, Lead Anchor and Editor-in-Chief at Kitco News, took the opportunity to chat with Steven about the potential security threats to Bitcoin, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing, as well as software failures and government regulation.
In this excellent interview, Steven also shares his views on the technical and political feasibility of a digital dollar and Bitcoin’s correlation with gold as a safe-haven asset. To follow is an extract, but don’t miss the full version here!
Michelle: Earlier we discussed your tremendous conviction in Bitcoin as a safe asset as a hedge against inflation and as a way to preserve and grow generational wealth. Is there any scenario that you see developing that could derail your Bitcoin thesis? What could make you change your mind about Bitcoin?
Steven: I’m not saying I expect this to happen because I don’t, but it would be some sort of foundational software issue, something we’ve never seen, and I don’t expect to see, but if there was a critical issue in the very protocol itself that made it insecure or if things changed and there was a game theoretical failure, something in the incentive structure of Bitcoin due to new technology or something changing in the world and the protocol became compromised, that would be kind of the invalidation.
Michelle: Are your clients bringing up the issue of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)?
Steven: Yes, that’s a common question. There’s a lot of concern around CBDCs. Let me say on one hand that I think the CBDC is one of the world’s most terrible ideas so I’m wholeheartedly against them. That being said, people lack an understanding of how massive the engineering project would be to deploy a CBDC in the U.S. It needs to all be rebuilt from the ground up. That’s not something that happens in a year and the government is not good at writing code, no matter how they contract this or what they do. I’m personally a sceptic.
Michelle: Have you seen a correlation between gold and Bitcoin?
Steven: As we see Bitcoin being more adopted as a safe haven asset I would like to see that correlation increase. I would like to see Bitcoin and gold maybe have a little bit more of a correlation. Bitcoin’s still relatively uncorrelated from gold.
Don’t miss this highly informative discussion and be sure to listen out for Steven’s in-depth discussion on AI and quantum computing!
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