Vitalik Buterin vs. Nouriel Roubini has a face-to-face dispute in Seul

• Roubini believes anonymity won't pass.
• Buterin says "Ït's a war".

Two prominent figures of the crypto space - Vitalik Buterin and professor Nouriel Roubini - met face to face in Seul, South Korea during Deconomy Conference and discussed the future of cryptocurrencies in front of 1,000. 

Sure enough, both opponents remained unconvinced. Roubini, also known as Dr. Doom is one of the most vocal critics of the digital currencies, while Vitalik Buterin is the creator of Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency and the coin behind one of the most popular smart contracts platform and dApps ecosystem.

Mr. Roubini believes that the governments will eventually have an upper hand over cryptocurrencies as the idea of anonymous money is not viable. He made a point that the cryptocurrency industry would follow the development path of Swiss banks that used to be considered as the most reliable and secure in terms of confidentiality.

“The reality is that this space is not going to be anonymous. Even in countries like Argentina, Venezuela, if you have a kleptocratic government that wants to take over your wealth, they’re going to make sure that all that stuff is registered and if they want to tax you or exploit your crypto wealth, they’re going to do it as well as in the legacy financial system,” he said.

Meanwhile, Buterin said that it was not the question of survival in the clash with the sate. The cryptocurrencies changed the perception of privacy within the society, which means that the states will have to adapt to the new reality.

“Even if cryptocurrency ends up going nowhere, one positive social impact I think it could have is that…people get used to the idea that they expect their money to have privacy. I think that could put a lot of socially positive pressure on CBDC developers around the world to have those concerns in mind and make sure their systems do preserve people’s privacy to the extent that people find their reason more acceptable,” he commented as quoted by The Block.

He also added that the world was in the midst of cold war where those who try to avoid control systems fight against those who build them.