Steve Wozniak is one of many tech figures who like cryptocurrencies but believe they will never be free from government control.
The tech entrepreneur, who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs in 1976, praised Twitter boss and cryptocurrency enthusiast Jack Dorsey for sparking talk that cryptocurrencies should be "the heart of our business".
"The problem is that the government will never allow it to get out of their hands," he told Yahoo Finance in an interview on Friday.
"If it got to the point where everything was done with cryptocurrency and it didn't go through governments for surveillance and taxation and everything else, now governments would just ban it. They wouldn't give up their power."
But Wozniak believes digital currencies will evolve into a functional payment method. "I am in the camp that cryptocurrency will be used effectively," he said.
"We have so many digital ways to pay for things now, even just to transfer money to people. It goes back to PayPal," he said. "We have Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Venmo and things like that. So we already have modes other than crypto."
However, he's not sure whether the external anonymity of cryptocurrencies compared to other forms of digital payments, as they are harder to identify and track owners, is a good thing.
"Crypto just has a bit of anonymity. And I don't know if it's right that" Oh hell, I can do something without people knowing."
But crypto-anonymity is a big misconception , argues CoinFlip CEO Ben Weiss. He noted that people cannot buy cryptocurrency without passing "know your customer" checks and providing some form of identification.
Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, is calling for greater oversight of the crypto industry. He said that digital assets can only become mainstream if there are clear rules governing the industry.
Wozniak explained that he likes bitcoin because its supply is limited. "Look at the US dollar - the government can just create new dollars and borrow; it's like it's never fixed, like bitcoin," he said.
"Bitcoin is mathematics, mathematical purity. No other bitcoin can ever be created."
Cryptocurrencies can be successfully traded with ease at https://exness1.org/.
In addition to digital money, Wozniak praised the promise of blockchains and their potential uses, including possibly in voting in political elections.
"Crypto is very promising through the blockchain of various things that it can do differently than before ... Right up to elections," he said. "It has a very robust format that is not easy to change."
