What Are the Negative Outlooks of 6 Influential People On Cryptocurrency

If you are interested in the cryptocurrency concept and the underlying technology, you can easily find out that a lot is going on, as it is a dynamic ecosystem, and a lot has been said about it. People have been discussing the potential of cryptocurrency ever since Bitcoin was released and the topic is getting more and more popular as well as controversial. There are all kinds of positive and negative views from all kinds of people. However, it is the most interesting when famous and influential people speak because this is when the markets do listen. We have shown you some of the positive and optimistic opinions in some of our previous posts (more details you can find here and here) and it feels fair to present some of the negative ones, as well. So, here is the list of 6 skeptic outlooks on cryptocurrency:

1.

In a lecture for the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, Yves Mersch member of the executive board of the Central European bank has compared cryptocurrencies to will-o’-the-wisp. It is a European folklore creature or phenomenon, translated from Medieval Latin and it means “foolish fire”, representing a ghost light which baits night travelers near marshes and then it pulls back if approached only to lure the travelers further astray.

“The most recent beguiling wisps are named variously “cryptocurrencies” – to denote the use of cryptographic methods and technology – or “virtual currencies” (VCs) – to denote their lack of legal recognition. There are, at present, more than 1,500 VCs in circulation, with dozens of new schemes being launched monthly, including initial coin offerings (ICOs). Most have failed to attract users, in particular in the major currency areas. The total value outstanding has fluctuated sharply, largely from speculative activity.”

He also spoke about “potential risks virtual currencies pose for price stability and financial stability.”

2.

Elon Musk seems to be a bit more reserved and prefers not to provide any statements regarding bitcoin and cryptocurrency, as there is little to no mention of it in his interviews. Still, in an old interview for Vanity Fair, he had implied he is more against it rather than for it. He tried to be objective and he ’s admitted Bitcoin is most likely “a good thing” and useful and still ends the topic with the remark “I don’t own any bitcoin”, as if trying to wash his hands of it.

“I think bitcoin is probably a good thing, but it’s essentially going to be […], primarily going to be a means of doing illegal transactions, that’s not necessarily entirely bad. […] It will be useful for legal and illegal transactions, otherwise, it will have no value as a use of legal transactions, cause you have to have a legal-to-illegal bridge. I don’t own any bitcoin.”

3.

Bill Gates seems to be openly skeptical about cryptocurrencies and their real-world applications, as well.

“The main feature of cryptocurrencies is their anonymity. I don’t think this is a good thing. The Governments ability to find money laundering and tax evasion and terrorist funding is a good thing. Right now cryptocurrencies are used for buying fentanyl and other drugs so it is a rare technology that has caused deaths in a fairly direct way. I think the speculative wave around ICOs and cryptocurrencies is super risky for those who go long.”

4.

Maybe the most active and prominent critic of Bitcoin, who does not hide his unfavorable outlook is the billionaire investor Warren Buffet. He has been continuously negative and distrustful through the media, when talking about cryptocurrencies and more specifically bitcoin, referring to it as “a mirage” “not a currency”, “rat poison squared”, or “an asset that creates nothing”, it’s not investing, it’s speculating”.

In an interview for CNBC, he stated “When you buy non-productive assets, all you are counting on is whether the next person is going to pay you more […] but the asset itself is creating nothing”

5.

Just after the price of bitcoin has plummeted at the end of last year, former Wells Fargo chairman and CEO Dick Kovacevich declared as a warning for CNBC news that he believed bitcoin is a “pyramid scheme” and “makes no sense”

“I never called it a fraud, because everyone knows what is going on, it’s just a pyramid scheme and you’re betting that somebody’s going to buy it and some people have been right, but the fundamentals make no sense”

6.

The Professor of Economics and Nobel prize winner, Paul Krugman also has some issues with cryptocurrencies and has been criticizing the related industry and the whole idea of it for quite some time.

In an interview for business insider he had said:

“It’s got this mystique about it because it’s some fancy technological thing that nobody really understands. There’s been no demonstration yet that it actually is helpful in conducting economic transactions. There’s no anchor for its value. You know, unlike pieces of paper with dead presidents on them, those are anchored by the fact that you can use them to pay taxes. There’s no anchor for bitcoin.

[…] this is even more obvious, I think that the housing bubble was.”

In a more recent op-ed column in New York Times, he wrote

“In other words, cryptocurrency enthusiasts are effectively celebrating the use of cutting-edge technology to set the monetary system back 300 years.”

“Cryptocurrencies, by contrast, have no backstop, no tether to reality. Their value depends entirely on self-fulfilling expectations – which means that total collapse is a real possibility. If speculators were to have a collective moment of doubt, suddenly fearing that Bitcoins were worthless, well, Bitcoins would become worthless.”

For more of this text, check here.