Jack Dorsey On UBI: Bitcoin Encourages Transparency, Long-term Thinking

Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and Block (previously Square) CEO spoke with Aarika Rhodes, a US congressional candidate and full-time elementary school teacher, about the implications of a Bitcoin (BTC)-powered universal basic income (UBI) strategy.

Dorsey said, “Obscurity of information forces and incentivizes people to engage in negative (financial) behaviors that don’t benefit them, their community, or family,” referring to the current centralized financial system’s lack of transparency.

“If there’s one thing to focus on in Bitcoin — the operations are transparent, the code is transparent, the policy is transparent.”

iexclusive News Nigeria reports that Dorsey believes that the base foundation of BTC has the potential to solve numerous use cases and problems as a direct result of using fiat currency.

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The entrepreneur has invested over $55 million in UBI experiments across the United States and abroad through business initiatives such as Start Small.

“We’re about to do a test of the UBI-like concept with Bitcoin as well.”

Dorsey’s BTC-powered UBI experiment will entail the establishment of a small-scale closed-loop community of sellers and merchants who adhere to Bitcoin standards.

He intends to identify use cases for large-scale implementation based on the happiness quotient and willingness to participate.

Rhodes is convinced that incorporating Bitcoin will reduce the costs associated with banking fees:

“When you have something like Lightning (network), where you can transact at very low fees is a benefit for everyone. It doesn’t matter where are economically.”

Dorsey stated that adopting the Bitcoin standard instills long-term thinking in terms of financial literacy; however, his skepticism toward a BTC-powered universal basic income will diminish based on the results of ongoing experiments:

“Just that action of owning it (BTC) will change people’s mindsets in fundamental ways that are net positive and compounds throughout their communities, and encourages other actions like sellers and merchants around them doing similar things.”

Along with the advantages of the Bitcoin standard, Dorsey is concerned about its drawbacks. Finally, he emphasized the inefficiencies in government policies and how UBI can help address some of the issues:

“If you intend to help people by giving them money directly is far better than the money that the governments (federal and local) spends on these existing support structures. It’s not helping people.”

Dorsey recently told MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor that Facebook (later rebranded as Meta) should have used an open-ended protocol like Bitcoin instead of attempting to create its own currency, Diem.

Dorsey also stated that making BTC more accessible would benefit many of Meta’s instant messaging and voice-over-IP services, including Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, as reported by Cointelegraph.