Venture capitalist Bill Gurley has built a personal position in Ethereum, stating that he is a fan of the community, and saying that he likes the adaptability and pragmatism that he sees.
Bill Gurley is a VC investor with a huge amount of credibility in the investments space. He is on the Forbes “Midas List”, along with the likes of Alfred Lin of Sequoia, and Peter Thiel of Founders Fund.
Gurley is currently a general partner at Silicon Valley VC firm Benchmark. However, his Ethereum position is his own and not his firm’s.
In an interview yesterday on BloombergTV he says that he was won over by the Ethereum community and how they were far more “pragmatic” than other cryptocurrency communities.
He talked about the move over to ETH 2.0 and the proof-of-stake consensus model, which would make the network more sustainable and scaleable. He was impressed with how many developers were working on the Ethereum blockchain, and stated:
“They seem to be open to change and are basically making several changes which I think will bring down fees and will be very beneficial,”
In his view, the move from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake consensus makes complete sense, in that it will make Ethereum far less energy intensive than Bitcoin, leading it to become more environmentally friendly and potentially flip Bitcoin to become the number one cryptocurrency in the future.
Gurley isn’t a maximalist for crypto though, and he does say that this new sector might not be for everyone.
One company he did come across very negatively on was the trading platform app Robinhood. He criticised the company’s reliance on its “payment for order flow” model. This involves the company routing trade orders through third party brokers, which can impact negatively on the final per share cost of the investor.
He saw Robinhood as more of a casino than an investment platform and would not invest personally in such a platform because it made him feel “emotionally bad”. When referring to the payment for order flow process he remarked that it is:
“a bastardization of our markets and I hope the SEC makes it go away,”
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
