Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++ programing language is not happy about the fact that Bitcoin is based on his programming language. He opened up with his views on it in a recent podcast interview with Lex Fridman earlier this week.
First of all, he acknowledged that he had no control over how his tool was going to be used by other programmers. “When you build the tool, you don’t know how it’s going to be used. You try to improve the tool looking at how it’s being used, but really, you have no control over how the thing is used.”, said Stroustrup.
He then mentioned why he doesn’t like C++ being used for creating and mining Bitcoin. “So, I’m very happy and proud of some things C++ is being used at and some other things I wish people wouldn’t do. Bitcoin mining is my favorite example. It uses as much energy as Switzerland and mostly serves criminals.”, he added.
While energy consumption is indeed a serious issue that needs to be addressed, I didn’t expect him to be not proud of being a foundation of a revolutionary cryptocurrency used worldwide.
Considering the claim that Bitcoin mostly serves criminals, a Bloomberg report earlier this year explains that illegal deals accounted for less than 1 percent of all Bitcoin spent so far. This is a significant difference from 2012 when 7 percent of Bitcoin transactions were illegal.
If you’re interested to listen to the entire podcast, check out the below link and let us know if you agree with his point in the comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTxRF5ag27A
