‘Better Tech’—A Legendary Google Billionaire Is Backing A Radical Bitcoin And Ethereum Rival Despite Huge $2 Trillion Crypto Price Crash

Bitcoin
BTC
, ethereum and other top ten cryptocurrencies have crashed this year, losing a combined $2 trillion (though bullish price predictions are still being made).

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The bitcoin price has plummeted under $20,000 per bitcoin as the Federal Reserve pursues a series of hawkish interest rate hikes in its war against inflation, down from almost $70,000 last year, while the ethereum price has crashed along with it—with a $300 million game-changer still potentially not priced in.

Now, former Google
GOOG
chief executive and billionaire Eric Schmidt has said chainlink—previously a top ten cryptocurrency that soared through 2020—has “better technology” and “scales better” than other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.

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“I’m historically a skeptic,” Schmidt said during the SmartCon conference in New York this week alongside Chainlink Labs cofounder Sergey Nazarov, it was reported by Decrypt. Schmidt joined Chainlink Labs as a strategic advisor in December last year.

Chainlink uses software called oracles to connect data to blockchains, designed to help clunky and cumbersome decentralized networks to scale. Chainlink’s link cryptocurrency has though crashed by more than 80% since hitting an all-time high in May last year, outpacing price declines seen by bitcoin, ethereum and other major cryptocurrencies.

Web3—the idea a blockchain-based, decentralized internet will eventually replace the Silicon Valley-centric web 2.0 that’s dominated by the likes of Google and Facebook’s Meta—is “not normal,” said Schmidt, warning ethereum and other similar smart contract blockchains are “poor in their capabilities,” with sky-high expectations getting “a little ahead of reality” in recent years.

However, Schmidt said ethereum’s long-awaited September merge upgrade—which saw ethereum transition from bitcoin’s energy-hungry proof-of-work consensus model to the more energy-efficient proof-of-stake—should be taken as “a sign that [the crypto] industry is getting its act together.”

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Meanwhile, Schmidt warned that looming crypto regulation could be coming prematurely. “Don’t ask for regulation early,” Schmidt said.

This year, following 2021’s huge bitcoin, ethereum and crypto price boom, governments and regulators around the world have begun putting together regulations that some fear could stifle the industry and crypto innovation.

Last month, the Biden administration instructed U.S. government agencies to double down on bitcoin and crypto enforcement—potentially putting the $1 trillion market on a collision course with regulators after the White House Office of Science and Technology suggested bitcoin could be banned.