Dr. Jordan Peterson — a best-selling author and well-known Canadian psychologist, with over 4.6 million followers on X — sparked a debate on September 14, about the ‘unbanking’ movement and Bitcoin (BTC) being a tool to “scrap banks”.
Notably, Peterson’s post was made in response to Australian news regarding Macquarie Bank’s branches moving to “scrap cash, cheque, and phone payment services.”
Australia is not the only country looking to end (or scrap) the use of physical cash or other non-centralized means of exchange. In most European countries, the use of cash is already limited to smaller transactions, and Nigerian banks also have low cash withdrawal limits on their ATMs.
In this context, Jordan Peterson suggested that people should stop using banks and asked if Bitcoin can “fix this”, as it can be the alternative tool for the ones that are still looking for a cash-like experience with their money.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency to cash-like payment experiences
Interestingly, the Canadian doctor had already demonstrated a will to use Bitcoin as a facilitator for global monetary transactions and was later introduced to Lightning Network custodial wallets by Joe Nakamoto (@JoeNakamoto), in order to receive borderless donations instead of using the fiat-based GoFundMe services.
Answering Peterson’s question, many renowned Bitcoin advocates commented in support of the cause. Like the host of the “What is Money?” podcast, Robert Breedlove:
“Banks impart counterparty risk to the act of using money. Bitcoin in self-custody is money absent counterparty risk. So yes, Bitcoin fixes this.”
— Robert Breedlove (@Breedlove22)
Moreover, crypto enthusiasts from other cryptocurrency networks — that are also focused on offering a cash-like experience to their users through decentralized and non-custodial means — also showed up to the proposed debate, like Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Nano (XNO), Monero (XMR), XRP Ledger (XRP), Dash (DASH), ZCash (ZCH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE).
However, the debate also brought critics like Aaron Day, a presidential candidate for the 2024 elections in the United States:
“No, it couldn’t. The traditional banking system can do 50k-100k transactions per second. The CBDC pilot in the US can do 1.7 million TPS. BTC can do 7 TPS. You need to do some research before you spout BTC.”
— Aaron Day (@AaronRDay)
Day is a well-known critic of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and a supporter of using cryptocurrencies for cash-like experiences.
