Balaji Srinivasan, head of the Bitcoin start-up 21 , may become head of the American food and drug regulator. In general, there are surprisingly many fans of Bitcoin and Blockchain in the team of the budding President Donald Trump.
From a certain level onwards, success is not an essential requirement for more success. Just as numerous supermanagers are appointed to the top of other companies regardless of their (mis) successes after they leave their previous employer with high severance payments, a serial entrepreneur like Balaji Srinivasan does not have to demonstrate any success in order to qualify for higher orders.
The prospective US President Donald Trump recently announced that the founder and head of the Bitcoin company 21.co may become head of the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA abbreviated authority is responsible for food monitoring and the approval of pharmaceuticals.
Srinivasan’s successes with the Bitcoin startup 21.co, which he founded, are unlikely to have been decisive for the candidacy. Although the entrepreneur managed to get the highest capital injection to date for the company with 116 million dollars, to bring a special mining chip into all devices, what it ultimately delivered remained below expectations. Basic information for those who are not too familiar with the world of cryptocurrencies is displayed here https://bitcoindata.org/the-world-of-crypto/
The 21-Bitcoin computer is an overpriced Raspberry whose implemented mining chip usually does not even generate the electricity costs; the platform through the 21.co wants to open up the trading of micro-services from computers for bitcoins is largely stagnating; the software used to buy or sell computer performance is still alpha or beta; and the company hasn’t announced anything new on the blog since June 2016. Doesn’t look like the revolution Srinivasan promised investors, and maybe the sluggish successes are the reason why he is looking for a new job without bitcoins.
For the job of head of the FDA Srinivasan qualifies less through successes with 21.co than through his previous ventures and his political stance. The entrepreneur previously co-founded the biotech company Counsyl and helped develop a test that can be used to check whether a child will suffer from Down’s syndrome or other serious, genetic disabilities while pregnant. Srinivasan is also known for his liberal attitudes, which he prefers to use a medium that the prospective US president also likes: twitter. With the nomination to head the FDA, however, Srinivasan has deleted his previous tweets. However, many of them can still be found via archive.is; the magazine Gizmode quotes some of them, from which it emerges that Srinivasan sees the authority for drug approvals primarily as a stumbling block for innovation and would prefer to pull its teeth.
This liberal resp.A libertarian attitude and a certain acquaintance in business circles seems to be Srinivasan’s most important qualification. He’s not the first Bitcoin-friendly candidate the future president has nominated for high office. Trump has brought the German-born billionaire, PayPal founder and investor Peter Thiel to the “Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee”. Thiel had previously donated more than a million dollars for Trump’s election campaign. For him, by creating a new currency, Bitcoin achieved what PayPal couldn’t; He attributes the potential to the cryptocurrency to change the world and has invested several million in the Bitcoin payment processor BitPay and – be careful: Balaji Srinivasan’s 21.co.
Perhaps the most clearly pro-Bitcoin, however, is Mick Mulvaney, who was nominated by Trump as head of the Office of Management and Budget. The Republican has already vowed that Bitcoin cannot be manipulated by the state; he founded the “Bitcoin Caucus” with MP Jared Polis, an initiative aimed at promoting Bitcoin in Washington; after he and Polis had been cooperating with the Coin Center lobby group for two years, they praised him as a “forward-looking leader.” In addition to Bitcoin, Mulvaney is very keen on “blockchain technology”, to which he ascribes the potential, “the financial industry, the US – To revolutionize the economy and the provision of government services. ”
Tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk (Tesla), Travis Kalanick (Uber) and Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo) also made Trump strategy advisors Appointed seem to be open to Bitcoin. In any case, they recognize the potential of blockchain technology. Whether Donald Trump is good news for the world and the US, whether or not Srinivasan is a good choice for office, is the one open question. On the other hand, it seems clear that the Trump presidency is unlikely to be a disaster for Bitcoin and blockchain.
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