From Email to E-Votes: Sabeer Bhatia Makes Bold Prediction
A JMM Election rally in Petarwar block in Jharkhand. Image credit X.com @KumarJaiMangal
Hotmail co-founder envisions social media elections and bot-driven digital money, echoing Nepal’s Gen Z Discord experiment and crypto’s wild global rally.
By S JHA
MUMBAI, September 17, 2025 —When Sabeer Bhatia speaks about the internet’s future, the world listens. The Hotmail co-founder, who once revolutionized how billions communicate, is now predicting another paradigm shift: a universal digital currency and elections conducted not in polling booths but on social media platforms.
“As a technologist (and the one who brought email to the masses), I see what’s coming: a universal digital currency—even bots will use it. In 10–15 years, elections worldwide won’t be in polling booths—they’ll be on social media,” Bhatia wrote on X.
His vision isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound. In Nepal this month, thousands of Gen Z students staged a live political experiment—electing an “interim prime minister” on Discord to channel their frustration with traditional politics. Their digital mock government trended nationally, underscoring how younger generations see legitimacy in online consensus rather than in creaky ballot machines.
The timing of Bhatia’s prediction also coincides with another volatile frontier—cryptocurrencies. A renewed rally has sent Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins soaring, reigniting debates about whether blockchain-based assets are speculative bubbles or inevitable stepping stones toward a borderless digital economy. If bots can trade, lend, and vote in decentralized systems, his forecast of a “currency for humans and machines alike” no longer sounds futuristic.
Yet Bhatia’s idea raises deeper concerns: Can social media platforms, plagued by disinformation and foreign influence, ever be trusted with democratic elections? Would a universal digital currency empower global equality or simply hand more control to Big Tech and AI-driven networks?
The world is already testing pieces of his thesis. Gen Z is rehearsing digital democracy on Discord. Investors are betting on decentralized finance. Governments are scrambling to regulate AI, crypto, and online speech. Bhatia’s provocation forces us to ask: Will the ballot box and the dollar bill go the way of the handwritten letter—relics of a pre-digital age?
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