Speaking at the Bitcoin 2021 conference, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey highlighted the properties that make Bitcoin a tool that can provide financial sovereignty and the ability to store value to the world’s unbanked and under-banked. He also described his personal belief in and passion for building the technology.
“For me, bitcoin changes absolutely everything,” Dorsey said. “What I’m drawn to the most about it is the ethos, what it represents… Whatever I can do, whatever my companies can do to make [Bitcoin] accessible to everyone, that is what I will do for the rest of my life.”
Dorsey is also the CEO of financial services company Square, which operates the payments app and retail bitcoin portal Cash App, as well as Bitcoin development group Square Crypto.
He was joined during the discussion by Alex Gladstein the chief strategy officer of Human Rights Foundation and another advocate for the sovereign potential of Bitcoin. Gladstein asked how Bitcoin can become a network that enables the masses of unbanked and underbanked people around the world to achieve more financial sovereignty.
“[Bitcoin] is going to be used by more and more people and my belief in bitcoin is that it is an amazing asset… but you need to be able to transact with it everyday,” Dorsey said, highlighting the Lightning Network as a solution that could make this possible. “So, the only reason Square got into Bitcoin is to that end.”
Attendees interrupted the discussion at one point, seemingly accusing Dorsey of undue censorship of free speech through Twitter. Gladstein that asked Dorsey about how the open-source model of Bitcoin might inspire a social media platform that is censorship free or censorship resistant.
“By creating a new [social media] platform … inspired entirely by Bitcoin, we want to do the same thing for Twitter,” Dorsey said, as the heckling continued. “I know you don’t believe me, I know you’re calling me ‘liar.’ I’m going to prove it to you.”
Dorsey also emphasized the importance of encouraging bitcoin investors to hold their own private keys and remain bitcoin-only.
“As a custodial exchange we need to push more companies like us to make sure companies have non-custodial solutions,” he said. “There is nothing else that compares to [bitcoin]. We have no interest in anything else.”