Schmidt made his statement during a Village Global live event in San Francisco during an interview with economist Tyler Cowen. During the interview, Schmidt also expressed his views on the future of blockchain technology, government reforms, Google’s recruitment practices, and the branching of the Internet.
The billionaire described blockchain technology as a “publicly overrated, but technically underrated solution.” He also stated that blockchain is the perfect solution for private banking and transactions in a trustless manner.
Schmidt gave Ethereum (ETH) the “thumbs up” by believing Ethereum’s development could revolutionize society, business, and households as we know them.
According to Schmidt, the most significant updates in modern society are the execution of applications based on Ethereum’s blockchain.
Schmidt also said that Ethereum could become the most influential platform once the development team comes up with a solution for the global blockchain activity synchronization issue.
Ethereum’s support isn’t Schmidt’s first blockchain backing. In 2014, the billionaire stood up for Bitcoin, a then-obscure cryptocurrency, praising it as a unique technology with enormous potential.
The former Google CEO familiarized himself with Bitcoin in 2011 by Julian Assange in a five-hour-long interview, posted by Assange on his WikiLeaks website.
Assange proposed to Schmidt to be an early adopter because Bitcoin and the game-changing technology behind it “could be worth a lot one day.”
Schmidt, with a net worth of $13,4 billion, invested in Bitcoin for the “endless possibilities Bitcoin is giving us.”
Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin and the company’s CEO Sundar Pichai also showed their interest in cryptocurrencies. Both have sons who are mining Ethereum, and Pichai even built his son a mining rig.