George Friedman: Blockchain Will Be "Obsolete" 10

George Friedman: Blockchain Will Be “Obsolete”

George Friedman, a respected geopolitical analyst, famous for being the author of “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century”, mentioned that blockchain technologies will eventually become obsolete.

According to the well-known researcher, despite constant innovations, eventually, attacks on the Bitcoin network will be so easy to realize that it will cease to be a secure means of storing value.

George Friedman
George Friedman

“It’s useful. It’s visible… (But) at some point it’ll be obsolete.”

As can be seen by his previous works, George Friedman bases his opinions on history. In the past, even the most complex means of cryptography have been deciphered over time.

In this regard, George Friedman told CNBC on Thursday:

“I’ve never known any encryption technology not to be broken… I doubt between Russia, China, U.S. intelligence services” that blockchain can’t be decrypted.”

George Friedman

So far, the increased difficulty in the consensus algorithm is one of the primary guarantees of the robustness of a blockchain. However coding errors have allowed the success of some hacks.

A few weeks ago, one of the mining algorithms of the Verge network was attacked, allowing the excessive production of new tokens.

This type of attack is very different from the hacks done to exchange houses because while in these, the failures are of third parties, in the 51% attacks, the exploit is found in the blockchain code itself.

It is important to note that sustained advances in quantum computing are a potential risk for DLTs because they could decrypt a blockchain almost immediately upon deployment.

Regarding blockchain technology, George Friedman proved to be part of the skeptical group.

“[Blockchain is] one of those hypes. People [are] profiting from it, making extraordinary claims about it.”

George Friedman

George Friedman:

Not Your Typical Predictor

The well-known analyst has made predictions especially in the field of international relations. His studies are of particular interest, being used as a reference by several strategists and researchers around the world.

George Friedman's Signature
Mr. Friedman’s Signature

His vision of the world has been known to defy commonly accepted standards and positions. According to Friedman, the United States is maintaining its status of power with little chance of significant change.

Similarly, he predicted that China would collapse economically and politically even though this currently seems impossible.

At the present time, China is one of the BRICS member countries along with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa. This group brings together the world’s major emerging economies which could be dominating the world’s gross domestic product in the coming years.