Emin Gün Sirer, whose company developed the Avalanche (AVAX) layer-1 blockchain, addressed the annual Cornell Blockchain conference on New York Citys Roosevelt Island.
Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer (Ian Allison)
The blockchain and cryptocurrency space cannot consider itself mature until the day its regulators are able to read and audit code, Ava Labs CEO and founder Emin Gün Sirer told attendees of the annual Cornell Blockchain conference.
“Regulators are nowhere near that stage now,” Gün Sirer said at the Friday event on New York Citys Roosevelt Island. “They are busy doing other funny tricks.”
Crypto, particularly in the U.S., is in the gunsights of regulators following the collapse of the FTX exchange and other calamities that befell the space in 2022. But even the most draconian of clampdowns will not crush crypto, said Gün Sirer, whose company developed the Avalanche (AVAX) layer-1 blockchain.
“Suppose we ban crypto altogether？” he said. “Generation Z is digital-first, and they will not allow this technology to go away. They have seen how amazing these new rails can be.”
Several areas, Gün Sirer said, need to improve in order to get the next billion users into crypto, such as scalability, ease of use and adaptability. However, when asked about the feasibility of the secret sharing technology known as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to reach that scale, he was skeptical.
“This space is often waiting for the next shiny new thing, which I call ‘Godot’ solutions,” Gün Sirer said, in reference to Samuel Becketts absurdist play “Waiting for Godot,” where the main protagonists are endlessly waiting for the arrival of something that never comes.