© Reuters
Investing.com – Eric Schmidt, former Google boss, now Alphabet (NASDAQ:), spoke yesterday about Web3 and cryptocurrencies, during an interview with Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink Labs at SmartCon in New York.
“I’m historically a skeptic,” Schmidt said of his previous stance on cryptocurrencies.
But he conceded that key progress has been made, noting in particular that the merger that took place earlier this month, marking the ETH network’s transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake – is “a sign may your industry pull itself together”.
Schmidt, however, still believes that today’s smart contracts, which are used to execute instructions on blockchains like Ethereum, are “poor in their capabilities”. He also judged that Web3’s overall marketing strategy “got a little ahead of reality.”
In short, he believes that the technology still needs to significantly evolve to be up to date.
In this regard, he claimed that Chainlink, for which he acts as an advisor, has “better technology” and that it “adapts better” than its competitors.
Moreover, he also felt that the need for crypto technologies to improve further makes it dangerous to regulate the market too quickly.
“Don’t ask for premature regulation,” Schmidt said, explaining that technology is still evolving, and the full extent of potential crypto challenges has yet to be revealed.
Finally, he also warned against the risk of seeing governments intervene abruptly, believing that “societies do not reward libertarian thinking very much”, and warning that “governments will assert their authority”.