Former Coinbase Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivasan thinks the US government could try to use tech giants like Apple and Google to steal crypto from citizens.
Srinivasan say that world governments could go bankrupt within a decade and be desperate for Bitcoin (BTC) to fund their operations.
He says the US government probably won’t be able to pull off a 51% attack on Bitcoin. A 51% attack is when a miner or mining pool obtains more than 50% of the network’s hash rate to rewrite the ledger and double previous transactions.
Srinivasan says China may be able to launch a 51% strike, but notes that most mining now takes place outside China’s borders, making that outcome less likely.
Coinbase’s former CTO say the real “system risks” for crypto are Apple and Google.
“Instead, the federal government can try to force Apple and Google (and other technology companies) to look for private keys on the servers, devices and browsers they control. And to transfer any stolen money to a money-hungry federal government.
This is not cyber terrorism, it’s cyber war. It’s not some random hacker who manages to get hold of a file. It is when the CEO of a company gives the lawful order to hack their customers. This is similar to what happened to 140 million Russians identified as enemies of the state in early 2022 – each tech company turned on its former clients.”
Srinivasan notes that Apple CEO Tim Cook could take on governments in such a scenario.
“He was good at end-to-end encryption and opposed the establishment on the CSAM (child sexual abuse material) initiative on devices, which was an obvious way to get the muzzle under the tent .”
In March, Srinivasan caused a stir in the crypto world after placing a million dollar bet that Bitcoin would skyrocket to $1 million in just 90 days in response to failing banks and hyperinflation.
BTC was trading around $27,000 at the time of his bet and was trading at a similar price earlier this month when the former CTO decided to pay out $1.5 million to close his bet.
Srinivasan then claimed that he had just made the bet to raise “public alarm” about the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.
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