How to describe John McAfee? He is undoubtedly a world-renowned personality. He’s a billionaire who made most of his fortune from his cybersecurity software services venture McAfee. And he’s a highly controversial man who has a significant message not only about Bitcoin, the blockchain, crypto and his US presidential candidacy but about life itself.

Coin Rivet got in a few exclusive questions before the rest of the press present at Malta Blockchain Summit caught on that an interview was taking place and listened in to what was being said.

Firstly, we asked McAfee about his recent announcement that he would again be a US presidential candidate. Of course, he spoke to us in the Presidential Suite at the Intercontinental Hotel where the Malta Blockchain Summit is taking place.

“I think I will win the nomination, but it doesn’t matter,” he says, and that’s because when he ran in 2016, he understood he wouldn’t win. His objective was to use the platform to promote cryptocurrency and blockchain.

“In 2016, I had the national attention for six months. And that’s why I’m running again in America,” he states. “We have the right to run, provided we have enough support. Will I have the support? OK. My Twitter followers alone are almost a million people. So, I have the right to run. I’m going to speak to the people but only about freedom, financial freedom. About how we can achieve that for individuals and we can achieve that through cryptocurrency and the blockchain.”

When we ask him about the mass adoption of cryptocurrency, he smiles assertively and replies: “I think it’s happening now. I mean, look at this conference. Eight thousand people here, all of them enthusiastic about cryptocurrency.”

Mass adoption vs collapse of fiat

Coin Rivet brought up the question of mass adoption. “So mass adoption, meaning when are we going to stop using fiat currencies? Five years. In five years.”

Should we be shocked to hear a man of his stature and position say the dollar is on the brink of collapse? He believes that will happen in the next five years.

“I don’t think anyone will use the US dollar or the euro or the Japanese yen or any other company in any other countries. We will all be using crypto in the very near future,” he believes. “It (fiat currency) will disappear.”

He explains the cumbersome fiat is despite advancements in monetary evolution, but he’s sure people will soon “understand the tremendous advantages of cryptocurrency” and ultimately decide to use it instead of centralised currencies.

We then asked him to share his predictions given the bearish sentiment dampening the cryptocurrency market.

“Bitcoin is not exactly where you would have probably expected it to be,” he says. “My expectations had nothing to do with this year or even next year. It’s the end of 2020, which is over two years now. It’s then when it will be worth a million dollars. I don’t care about short-term fluctuations. What I care about is the growth in the adoption of Bitcoin, which is growing tremendously, both the number of people and the number of transactions. That’s where the true value will come from.”

Who to blame for market manipulation?

“What we’re looking at now are artificial manipulations of the market by powerful people,” he states. “As Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies become larger and more widely used, the manipulation of that will become more and more difficult until finally, no one agency or even government will be able to manipulate it.”

But in the meantime, there are those who are very interested in meddling with the evolution of money and its natural next phase, which may be cryptocurrency.

“I think the financial leaders within the world governments are the people who are doing this, and you know that they have the power to manipulate in very subtle ways through avenues that we cannot see, but I’m sure that it is world governments. It is not in the government’s interest for cryptocurrency to succeed because if it does, what’s going to happen to governments?” he states. “How will they collect taxes when you don’t know how much someone has made?”

McAfee may be spot on in saying banks and governments “are very fearful and because of this they are reacting in ways that they always react: very under the table.”

He accuses banks, governments and the very rich of working underhandedly against crypto in “quiet backroom ways, but they cannot succeed, no matter what they do.”

Conclusions

McAfee has a few suggestions for all of us. “Start using cryptocurrency. It does have many uses, and it has great value. I recommend everybody to use it as a currency rather than view it as an investment.”

He concludes: “Don’t worry about these temporary fluctuations. I mean these are short-term fluctuations. In two years time, two things will happen. Bitcoin is already expanding in the user base tremendously. And in the number of transactions, that’s where the true value is.”

More from John McAfee tomorrow. Don’t miss it.